Digimon Adventure Redux: Book One: Courage
by LegendaryS
Summary: In another timeline, the Chosen Children didn't gather at summer camp, and weren't summoned. In 2004, some of their number are finally summoned to a Digital World that is falling apart at the seams due to the damage done by the Evil Generals threatening it. Will they manage to survive File Island, despite their limitations?
1. Arrival

Chapter the First: Arrival

Tai Kamiya shivered slightly in the cold air, drawing a jacket he'd grabbed from home around him. Normally teachers would scold him, but as the summer air was preposterously chilled for July. He sighed, turning to his younger sister. "Weird day, isn't it?"

Kari nodded, staring coldly ahead of her. The entire school district had been dragged on another stupid yearly field trip, and Tai's sister, a quiet girl who mostly wanted to be left alone, hated the crowd that had been built up from thousands of students. Tai didn't mind much that she wasn't saying much, she barely talked at home.

"You want my jacket?" Tai asked after they shuffled forward a few more feet. "I'm not that cold." Blatant lies, of course, but he was her older brother. She shook her head in response, wrapping her arms around herself and trying not to shiver. Tai sighed and let it be. Not worth it, even though she'd probably get sick later like she always would. He'd let her suffer, and find someone else to talk to.

Like Sora, who was standing in a line next to Tai's. She kept smiling over at him, laughing at the ridiculousness of cramming so many students into one field trip. Tai wasn't that good at talking to her any more; they'd tried dating a year ago but things had fallen apart. He assumed that it was the fault of Sora's mother, a rather domineering woman who had spent the last few years turning Sora from a tomboy to someone prim and proper. But they were still friends, he thought. It was awkward maybe, but she didn't turn him away.

"It's really cold!" she said. "What is up with this weather?"

Tai tried to say something, but couldn't come up with a response. He just stood there awkwardly. Maybe there wasn't anyone else to talk to.

"Hey Kari, where's that friend of yours?" Sora asked a bit later. "The kid who has a writer for a mom?"

Kari turned to Sora slowly. "You mean TK?" she asked. There wasn't much emotion in her voice, nor inflection. Tai wondered for a moment if TK and Kari were friends at all, or if Sora was just mistaken. "He and Davis dashed off to hang out with TK's older brother."

"I know that guy!" Sora said. "He's... well, to be honest he's basically a jerk." She shrugged. "You know who I mean, right Tai?"

Tai shook his head. "Never heard of him," he said.

Sora sighed. "Maybe if you'd gone to summer camp with me back in fifth grade," she said, "you'd know the guy. I made a lot of great friends there, and I still talk to most of them. Even TK." She shrugged.

"You know why I didn't go that year. Kari was really sick!" Tai didn't point out that Kari was sick frequently lately. She'd spent most of the last school year in the hospital and while this year she wasn't complaining about any new symptoms, she didn't seem to be that much better. He turned away from Sora, not really wanting to start that chat again.

The line slowly started moving forward, but the chill in the air didn't disappear. Looking around, Tai made note of TK and Davis hanging out with Matt, an angry-looking kid who didn't seem to hang out with anyone besides his little brother. He also noticed an old friend Izzy talking with an even dorkier girl whose name he didn't know. She was probably in year eight if Tai didn't recognize her.

"I can't wait for this trip to be over," he said to Kari when the line stopped again. She didn't say anything in response for awhile.

When she did, it was with alarm. "Tai, no one's moving," she said.

"Right," Tai said. "That's because the line has st-"

Kari shook her head. "No, they're not moving at all! Look!" She reached forward and seemed to shove against the person in front of her as hard as she could. Her target didn't budge an inch.

"That's... um..." Sora pointed up suddenly. "Look!"

Seven sets of eyes followed her arm to the sky. In front of them floated a young man in a pure white robe. Surrounding him were an array of glowing lights. "It is time," he announced. He flickered for a moment, then continued. "The world can no longer be maintained, and this is the greatest concentration of you that I have seen in many years." Another flickering, and then he disappeared entirely, replaced by eight beams of light, shooting outward to the only teens present who were still moving.

An instant later, the cold air had disappeared, and taken with it were eight children.

* * *

Tai woke with a headache and blurred vision. He briefly considered the possibility that he'd slipped off to some party the night before, but as his sight returned, Tai realized that this could not possibly be the case. He was not in his bed and now clearly remembered the events that had preceded his awakening.

He stood up carefully and looked around. An immense forest stretched out around him, silent as a grave. The humidity was greater than Tai had ever known. "What the hell?" he whispered. "Where am I?"

"You're in the Digital World!"

Tai looked down and nearly screamed. Sitting at his feet was an orange lizard with a long nose. Tai took several steps backward. "What are you?" he asked.

The lizard, or maybe dinosaur, stood up. "I'm an Agumon," he explained. "I live here on this island!"

"Island?" Tai stared. Were they on an island now? They'd been on an island before, admittedly, but it was hard to think of Honshu as an island because of how big it was. This definitely wasn't there. Several large and purple tropical flowers were growing in ground that was not covered in the shade of the trees around them.

"Yes," Agumon said patiently. "It's called File Island." He sighed. "I know we just met, but I feel like I've been waiting for you forever."

Tai looked at the 'Agumon' closely and debated internally how fast it could probably run. He decided it wasn't worth the risk. "Uh, why?" he asked, stalling for time. None of the trees looked particularly easy to climb, so he wasn't sure how he was going to go about this. He just hoped the monster wouldn't suddenly go berserk and attack him.

Agumon considered this question for an exceedingly long time, and was just about finished saying, "I'm not quite sure," when suddenly a scream echoed through the trees. "Oh no!" Agumon shouted, and took off towards it. "Come on!" he added when Tai hesitated.

The two ran for several minutes before reaching a clearing where Kari and Matt stood, alongside what appeared to be a blue-furred wolf. "It's okay," Matt was saying unconvincingly. "His name is Gabumon or something and he just wants to be our friend." Matt also sounded a little disgusted.

"Well," Gabumon interjected, "mostly your friend, Matt." He smiled, revealing a set of dangerous teeth.

Tai tried to smile back and waved at Kari. "I'm glad you're okay!" he said.

"Okay?" Kari asked. "How can I be okay when I don't even know where I am?" She waved around her. "This could be the Phillipines or someplace for all we know! We were at a field trip a second ago!" Tai couldn't believe Kari was freaking out this much and stared blankly as she shut her eyes and began to tremble.

He put his hand on her shoulder. "It's gonna be okay!" he insisted. "We'll find a shore, light up a big fire, and try to get some help. We're probably somewhere in the Pacific, and we'll be found in no time."

Matt glared at Tai. "We could be anywhere," he said firmly. "I don't even remember falling unconscious! What makes you so sure we haven't been drugged up for days or weeks?!"

"Also, I've never heard of the Pacific," the one called Gabumon said. "I'm sure it's a nice place though, but that's not where we are."

"Then what ocean are we in?" Tai asked.

Agumon smiled. "File Island is one of the many islands that can be found in the global ocean, which is called the Net."

"And where's that?" Kari demanded.

Neither of the monsters answered for some time. Finally, Gabumon said, "We're not really sure. We've never left the island. Even when I was a baby Punimon I only ever lived here." He paused briefly, but resumed before any of the children could think of something to say. "To be honest, I've spent all this time waiting for Matt."

"And I was waiting for Tai!"

It occurred to Tai that he hadn't actually said his name at any point while being here, but before he could point this out, Kari spoke up. "Does that mean there was a monster like you waiting for me?"

"Maybe! There were five more just like us! Biyomon, Tentomon, Palmon, Gomamon, and Patamon!" Agumon smiled again. It was deeply unsettling.

"Were?" Kari asked. "Why did you use past tense?"

And here, Agumon's smile disappeared. He sighed deeply as well, and looked so depressed that Gabumon had to answer for him. "Well," he explained, "A few years ago Palmon and Gomamon hitched a ride to the continent, and we haven't heard from them since. And..." Gabumon looked down. "Our friend Patamon was attacked about a year ago by a powerful Digimon. He didn't survive."

"Why do all of your names end in '-mon'?" Matt asked.

"Because we're Digimon!" Gabumon said. "It stands for Digital Monsters. That's what we all are here."

All three children exchanged rapid glances. Digital? They all knew what that meant, but there didn't seem to be anything electronic about either creature, or any of the rest of their surroundings. "Okay," Tai said at last. "Sure, why not?" He leaned in towards Kari, "Keep your eye on these things, they seem really messed up."

She nodded. "Um, so, Tai... Matt... What's the last thing you guys remember before waking up? Do you guys remember that weird man who appeared?"

"Now that you mention it, I do," Matt said. "And there were all those lights..."

"Eight of them!" Tai cut in. "And one of them shot right at me and then..." He looked down at his belt. Placed snugly against it was a small gray device. Tai grabbed it and examined it. "Weird," he said. "And it's got these four red dots on it. One of them is moving."

Matt looked at his. "Yeah," he said. "If there was one less-" He cut himself off. "This is some kind of radar, Tai! We should follow the signal!" He turned about a few times, then ran off into the woods, Gabumon following him carefully.

"Should we follow them?" Kari asked. She was looking at her own little device. "It does seem to be a radar, brother."

Tai nodded. "Let's go. Are you coming, Agumon?" The lizard nodded as well, and they all set off. They found it easy to regain sight of Matt, who was now standing with the girl Yolei. She looked immensely terrified.

"There were all sorts of giant bugs everywhere!" she was screeching. "I saw them on the cliff face and it was all I could do to get away without screaming and being noticed."

Matt put his head in his hands. "You're screeching now!" he shouted. "Calm down! There's just some weird wildlife here or something okay?" Yolei looked even more scared than before, and Matt deflated slightly. "Sorry," he said. "Yeah, it's scary. But we've got to make plans instead of blindly panicking or we're not going to accomplish anything."

Yolei continued to tremble, but she muttered, "Right, right." She looked down at Gabumon and shuddered. "I'm guessing you're going to tell me next that this one is friendly, huh?"

"Afraid so," Matt said. "At least, he seems to be. Tai's monster, er, 'Digimon' seems friendly too."

The girl looked from one to the other, trying very hard not to seem too alarmed by everything going on. "Why don't I have one?" she asked suddenly. "Where'd you get yours?"

"Some of them left, or died," Tai said. "Maybe yours was one of those..."

Kari cleared her throat. "That's true, Tai," she said, "but Agumon, Gabumon, and the five Digimon we heard about are only seven. Weren't there eight flashes of light? If that means there's eight of us here now, it sounds like one of us was going to be short a partner even if all the others had stayed."

"What's the big deal?" Matt asked. "I mean, Gabumon looks cool I guess but it's not like my life depends on him. Hell, I'll share this one with you if you want, Kari."

"As your big brother, I'll do the same thing," Tai said jokingly.

Matt's eyes suddenly widened. "TK..." he whispered. "He was hit by a flash just like me! Where is he?"

Yolei shrugged. "I haven't seen him or Izzy," she said. "And weren't you hanging out with someone else too? Daiki, or something?"

"Davis. And he was just following TK around. He does that a lot." Matt glared around at the forest, as if it were personally responsible for their situation. "That makes seven, right? Any ideas who else might have come along?"

"Sora," Kari said firmly. "And we should hurry up and find them, if there's giant insects like Yolei said. Only two of those people are going to have Digimon friends, if-" She cut herself off suddenly when a giant green insect emerged from the trees. It seemed impossibly large; and as a dragonfly it also was incredibly threatening, its legs all ending in sharp gray claws.

The children and Digimon stared for a moment in shock, and then the monster muttered something under its breath. A large cloud of smaller dragonflies appeared out of nowhere and then began to swarm around everyone.

Kari was the first to cry out when one of them stung her, and then another. Agumon stepped forward and opened his mouth as widely as he could. A small ball of fire shot forth, incinerating a large number of the insects but leaving many behind. Gabumon meanwhile charged towards the insect and opened his mouth as well, and a jet of blue flame shot forth. Unlike Agumon, his attack had no effect on his target.

"Run!" Tai decided, grabbing Kari's arm and pulling her along with him. Matt and Yolei were right behind them, and the Digimon (good and bad) followed as well.

"I told you about the insects!" Yolei shouted. "What the hell is that thing?"

Gabumon, panting for breath, answered. "It's a Yanmamon," he explained. "They're normally quite friendly insect Digimon, but lately no one on File Island has been very friendly!"

Tai almost asked why, but decided against it because he realized they might be running for some time. How were they going to get away from this thing? There didn't seem to be an obvious solution, until they came to a cliff face. A powerful river churned below them.

"Should we jump?" Tai asked.

"Are you crazy?" Matt shouted. "Why would we do that?"

Yolei looked down at the water. "What choice do we have? The river doesn't look that bad. We could probably stay afloat."

"I don't want to risk 'probably'," Kari muttered, but no one listened. The whirring of Yanmamon's wings could be heard behind them.

"On the count of three?" Tai asked. Everyone nodded. "One..." Agumon and Gabumon caught up with Tai.

"Two..." The Yanmamon shouted "Insect Swarm!"

"Three!" Tai yelled, and together the four teens and two Digimon leaped forward off the cliff. Tai tried not to scream as they plummeted.

* * *

_Next time:_ _In the Forests_

_TK, Sora, Izzy and Davis explore the woods around them and discover much about the political nature of File Island._


	2. In the Forests

Chapter the Second: In the Forests

Four teenagers sat huddled in the interior of a large, holographic tree. They wouldn't have noticed it if one of their number, Davis, hadn't tripped and fallen through its exterior. Now they were huddled as closely as they could be, and hovering above them were a pair of rather large animals; one a pink bird, the other a maroon insect.

"What the hell were those things?" TK hissed, trying not to raise his voice loudly enough to draw the attention of any wild animals lurking outside. "They looked like giant stag beetles."

Tentomon lowered himself onto Izzy's head, and the nerdy boy tried not to shudder. "Well, I am beginning to suspect that someone foresaw your arrival and didn't want you here."

Sora stared at Tentomon. "Like who? Another human?"

"I can't imagine a human surviving in this place," Davis muttered. "That plant thing tried to kill me."

"Alraumon are rather territorial!" Biyomon said. "You should have listened to me when I was describing our old friend Palmon! She had a magenta flower, not a gray one!"

Davis glared at the bird for several long moments, then shifted his weight so he was only facing TK. "This place is the worst," he said. "We should definitely find whoever's in charge and ask them to send us home somehow. I'm sure our parents will pay the ransom."

Tentomon chuckled. "I can't imagine that the Digimon in charge of this island would be much inclined to help out humans."

"Why not?" Izzy asked.

"You see," Biyomon said, "Devimon is one of thirteen Evil Generals who controls the world. He's the weakest of them and so has but a tiny fraction, but it's said it was a reward for doing a task for one of the much more powerful generals. Maybe even someone like Daemon."

Sora laughed. "Evil Generals?" she said. "That sounds so corny."

"Yes, but you won't find any of them a laughing matter in person. They're all incredibly dangerous and they're all aware of a set of ancient prophecies made about a day when eight children would be summoned to the Digital World and maybe even destroy the evils that threaten it."

"I guess that's you guys," Tentomon said. "Though I'm not entirely sure how you're going to go about that. Devimon is a formidable opponent who could kill all living Alraumon without breaking a sweat. You lot..."

Davis grumbled under his breath.

"In fairness," TK said, coming to his best friend's defense, "the plants where we come from don't move very much. Davis and I could have taken that thing out easily if we'd been prepared."

"Yeah, with a flamethrower and extra napalm," Davis said.

Izzy sighed. "Let's just not talk about the various encounters we've had while getting here, and discuss what we know. If there's a prophecy referring to eight humans, then either four of us haven't been summoned yet or we got separated. You guys say there were seven of you, each waiting for someone you didn't know?"

"That's right!" Biyomon said, cheer dripping in each syllable. She fluttered down into Sora's lap and hugged her. The girl stared in disbelief.

"Okay then," Izzy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It seems likely then that just like we're suffering a disconnect, you Digimon are too, and there were originally supposed to be eight of you. One for each of us who was summoned. You mentioned, before we started running, that you thought Patamon would have liked TK. I guess Gomamon or Palmon might have hit it off with Davis, and then the one left and the missing one would pair off with whoever the other four of us are. Or maybe Davis is the kid short a partner"

"And those are likely Tai, Kari, Matt, and Yolei," Sora interrupted. "Right? That's what we decided?"

"Exactly. But that's not important right now. What I'm getting at here is that, using nothing more than logic, we can deduce that the prophecies, if they have any validity, probably anticipated this convenient pairing, and that our fight with Devimon will involve you guys."

Tentomon sounded uncertain. "I'm not certain that the four of us who remain will be able to take out Devimon. I don't think the seven of us could have done it."

"Right, well..." Izzy trailed off and no one spoke for awhile. He sighed. "Okay, then we just have to find all eight original Digimon! Then we can have all eight of you f-"

TK interrupted this time. "Uh, Izzy? They said Patamon was dead, remember?"

Both Digimon deflated. "It's true," Tentomon said. "After Tokomon became Patamon, well, everything went straight to hell."

* * *

It was years ago, perhaps eons. Seven little Digimon were gathered along the beach, staring forlornly at the sky. Normally it would be blue, but today thousands of little stars outshone the sun, forming intricate patterns and then fading away rapidly. Occasionally a Digimon thought he or she saw a picture in there, a window across space and time to parts unknown, but it faded as rapidly as it came. Worse than the decay of the sky (how long had that been going on; each Digimon was sure it had been blue when they were born, but they could not remember what day the skies became irreparable) was the armada of dark gears moving inexorably across the heavens.

"I don't think they're ever going to come," Gomamon whimpered. He was a small white seal and normally of better cheer, but today had not been a good day.

"Perhaps they got lost," Patamon offered. He had only recently become a child Digimon, and was flying slow circles slightly above the others, practicing his wings. "The Evil Generals might have tried to confuse them, but I'm sure they'll get here eventually!"

None of the Digimon spoke most of the rest of the afternoon. Finally, when their hunger (they had not moved for three days) became too much, they separated. Biyomon and Tentomon flew into the forest to gather meat from the trees, Gomamon swam off to find fish, Agumon and Palmon began an hour-long march to the Yokomon village for trade, and Gabumon resumed trying to fix the mysterious telephone booths that dotted the beach in the mad hope that whoever they were waiting for was just waiting for the call.

As Patamon had only just become a child, he had no allotted chore to help the group with, and lazed on the beach instead. Tomorrow, they had decided, he would fly to Andromon and try to get some new parts for the phones. Today he could rest. And he did, dreaming idle dreams of a small someone in green, smiling and laughing with him. Patamon could never remember more than that when he woke up. None of them could.

Today, he woke not to the smell of food, but to a terrible laugh. He bolted upright and looked towards Infinity Mountain. He couldn't see it, because an immense fire raged all around it. Patamon looked around wildly, and saw beside him a black devil.

Devimon smiled. "I have finally found you," he said, grabbing Patamon with one of his overly-long arms. "And long before your destined children arrive." He laughed. "It's funny, you know," he said, slowly pushing his claws into Patamon's eyes, talking calmly over his screams. "You were the one foretold to defeat me. But all of the Primary Village's have been destroyed now. You won't be reborn." His claws punctured through Patamon's lower jaw and the orange bat disappeared into a stream of data. "Prophecy broken. That was easy."

He flew off, ignoring the telephone booths where Gabumon was cowering and crying.

* * *

"After that," Tentomon said, "Palmon and Gomamon decided they were done waiting around. Gomamon swam off and Palmon hitched a ride with a passing Whamon a few weeks later. We never saw them again."

Sora stared. "And he did that to one of you that easily?!" she nearly screamed. "And now you want us to take him out for you?"

"That isn't going to happen," TK said simply. "There's absolutely no way that we can do that. Not without guns or something!"

"Guns won't be much help," Biyomon admitted. "A pair of Digimon came to File Island a year or two ago, a Revolvermon and a Starmon. They tried to shoot Devimon. They died in five minutes."

Davis stood up. "Well, it's been great fun," he said, "but I quit. I am just going to go outside now and get myself killed by something quiet, and maybe if I'm lucky this is all a horrible, horrible nightmare and I'll wake up in my own bed in a couple of minutes." He left the tree.

"No, wait!" Izzy shouted. "You'll give us all-" he cut himself off, in part because he realized his yelling wasn't helping.

But mostly because of a rough barking sound, like a feral dog's. Everyone stood up and jumped out of the tree on the off-chance the monster would go after Izzy's voice, but as they did this without much planning ahead, each person found themselves facing a different direction, besides TK and Davis (for TK had followed his friend).

They were both facing a twisted version of a Labrador Retriever, with white and pink fur. It continued barking at them madly. For a moment, Davis thought he heard a string of Japanese, but then it was replaced by more barking. And then the thing charged.

"Biyomon, do something!" Sora shouted.

The bird intercepted gracefully, pecking angrily at the dog monster's face. It fell to the side, and the four children soon stood side-by-side, watching the fight hesitantly. Tentomon rubbed his wings together and somehow a bolt of lightning shot out from him and shocked the pup's front paw, leaving it on its side, yipping but too stung to get back up.

All four sighed in relief, and then immediately panicked again when Biyomon pecked the dog once again and it melted into a stream of pixels. "What the hell?" Davis shouted. "What is with this place? Why is everything trying to kill everything else?!"

"It's evolution," Izzy said. "Limited space, few resources, so they are optimized to compete with each other for what there is. The animal world isn't so different. Everything's in competition."

"This place is worse though," Sora said. "We need to find a way back home." She turned to Biyomon. "How do we get back to... well, Earth, I guess."

Izzy scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous Sora. We're off-world. Because of the limits the speed of light places on interstellar travel, it's likely everyone we know is already d-"

"Don't care," Sora interrupted. "Biyomon, tell me. How would one get back to Earth?"

"I don't know," the bird admitted. "I've never left this island. I've heard stories, though, about Digimon trying to go to alternate dimensions. The Yokomon pass down fairy tales about that kind of thing. 'The Chicomon and the Gateway to Dreams', 'The Ocean Without a Sun," that sort of thing. We grew up with them, so we heard all their stories."

Izzy, who had been glaring at Sora the whole time, cut in. "So are you all adults now?"

"No, we're just children Digimon. Yokomon are babies." Tentomon landed on the ground. "The Alraumon and that other Digimon we just fought, a Labramon, are children like us. Those insects were all adults. There's two levels of baby, of which Yokomon are the upper levels, and then I think there are levels after adult, but I've not heard much about them."

TK still looked at where the Labramon had been standing until it had died. "Uh..." He shuddered. "Guys, we should get out of here. There could be a monster anywhere in this place. There's gotta be some open ground where we can at least see what's coming after us."

"But if we can see them, they can see us," Izzy said. "We shouldn't make ourselves too obvious."

"Biyomon and I haven't had too many problems staying alive," Tentomon said. "Admittedly lately we stick near a village, but it's well within walking distance, if you want..."

TK finally turned away from where Labramon had been. "Yeah," he said. "Let's go."

"You okay?" Davis whispered. TK didn't answer.

* * *

The village was not, as the children had suspected, the Yokomon village; nor, as they had hoped, was it outside the forest. Hidden in a group of dense trees, it was populated by a variety of creatures, none of whom could be reasonably seen as being babies, but each of whom could be seen as being more impossible than the last. Among them were another giant insect (this one a praying mantis type), a tapir, a large egg with two legs, a rabbit, and a small group of floating gears.

"This village is relatively new," Tentomon explained. "It's filled with refugees from the continent of Directory. Apparently something awful is happening there."

"Don't worry though, everyone here is very friendly," Biyomon said. "No Black Gears or willing workers for Devimon around. We've done a pretty good job of driving them out thanks to Digitamamon." She pointed to the egg, in case the children didn't know what 'tama' meant.

Sora, Izzy, TK, and Davis all stared in shock. The variety of digital monsters seemed infinite, and as they had grown up in Japan, even large differences in hair color or height were uncommon. "This is all too much," Sora whispered.

"Got a theory for how all this evolved, Izzy?" Davis asked sarcastically.

Izzy shook his head. "No clue," he admitted. "This is less plausible than _Star Trek_." The children stepped forward, looking about at the buildings. Like their inhabitants, there didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason here. They were painted in dozens of outlandish, clashing colors, and while all were more or less circular in shape and not very tall, they managed to show that there were hundreds of ways to arrange things even with those constraints.

A pink ball with a flower on its head and many small legs waved some of those legs at the team. "Biyomon!" it shouted. "Is this the friend you were telling me about?" She looked at Sora suspiciously. "What kind of Digimon is she?"

"I'm not a Digimon at all," Sora said. "I'm a human."

"What's that?"

TK and Davis exchanged unhappy glances. "We're going to get this a lot, aren't we?" Davis whispered. "Like, a lot a lot. Like, everything we ever encounter under any circumstances is going to ask that about us, even though we just heard that there's some sort of crazy prophecy about our species. Because no one knows about the prophecy, so no one is even going to know that we totally helped them out of this tight spot."

TK chuckled. "Probably," he agreed. "Being a hero is a really thankless job."

"Are you guys coming?" Both boys looked up. The Digimon and their apparent partners were walking into one of the huts. "Yokomon is going to introduce us to an old Monochromon!" Sora said. "Come on!"

They darted after their compatriots, and found themselves in a dimly lit, large hut dominated by the black and gray form of a large beast. Monochromon, probably. Izzy snickered when he realized the word play involved.

"Yes," Monochromon said to Yokomon, who was whispering into his ears. "These four are definitely humans. I thought you were fairy tales." Izzy opened his mouth to say something, but Monochromon continued calmly. "I suppose though that all prophecies are meant to come true sooner or later. I am sad it has taken you this long." He sighed, deep and long, and once he had finished took so long to talk again that Davis wondered if the beast had died of old age.

"But it is better late than never. I have grown so tired, watching this world decay." As if to illustrate his point, there was a brief flickering in the air around them, which subsided. "My only concern is if you will be able to stand against the evils that assault this world."

Izzy stepped forward. "About that," he said. "I was wondering if you could tell us more about said evils. I'm not entirely clear on what they are. Devimon, apparently, but... it seems like there are more?"

Monochromon nodded, or seemed to. No one was entirely sure, it bobbed so quickly and across such a small space that it might have just been a muscle jerking. "There are thirteen Evil Generals who assault this world, and there are whispers of other dark forces besides, both supporting and opposing the goals of the thirteen. On this island it is hard to keep abreast of the situation as it develops." He paused again.

"I also regret to inform you that I cannot name the generals. Most of them are either very secretive or from lands distant. It may even be that some of them have been defeated in the time it has taken you to arrive. I am too tired to pay attention to the world anyway. I intend to wait for the end. All the signs of it are here. Soon Deathmon will take flight upon the world, and all things shall be swept away."

No one said anything for a long time. All four children felt too overwhelmed by this information to really comment. "So," TK managed finally, "what can you tell us about this island?"

A light snore answered him. Davis rolled his eyes. "Tentomon, Biyomon, you guys got anything?" he asked.

Both nodded, and Tentomon began to speak. "File Island is technically entirely the domain of Devimon, but even with the Black Gears he has only been able to maintain control over its central peak, Infinity Mountain. Various enclaves rose up in defiance to him, partially boosted by the refugees from other lands. While they may not have been strong enough to handle the Evil Generals in their own domains, Devimon lacks the capability to truly challenge the rest, though he has done an admirable job of keeping them all down."

"And this is one of the enclaves?" Sora asked. Tentomon nodded.

There was a scream outside, and all the children rushed outside. A large mole with a drill on its nose was poking out of a hole in the ground, holding down a Yokomon and also a small dog-like creature. He looked down at both of them, and in an instant, they were gone.

"Where are the Chosen Children of the prophecies?" the mole shouted. "Bring them to me now!"

* * *

_Next time: A Digital Evolution_

_Tai's group barely escapes drowning, but finds themselves close to an industrial complex built by Devimon's army._


	3. A Digital Evolution

Chapter the Third: A Digital Evolution

The river was stronger than it had appeared. As soon as the shock from impact was over, Tai found it difficult even to pull himself up to the surface, and in fact for a brief and terrifying moment he wasn't sure where that surface was. He felt a tugging on him, and followed it, relieved to reach air and discover that Yolei had been pulling him up.

The surface was calmer, though the current was still strong, and each of the children spent so much of their energy just trying to keep above the water that no one said anything for a long time. All of this was made more difficult by the fact that the river was a narrow one, bound by cliffs on both sides. Several times someone found themself in an eddy that knocked them fiercely against one of the walls, bruising them and threatening to pull them back under.

After what felt like ages, the cliffs pulled away from each other, and the group found themselves floating along the shoreline of a beach. Tai reached the shore first, and turned around to help Kari up, but she refused his assistance and collapsed onto the sand, shivering.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Matt asked uncertainly. "She wasn't sick today, right?"

"She's fine!" Tai snapped, kneeling beside her. He whispered, "Are you okay?" but didn't get an immediate answer. "Dammit," he whispered. "This is not what she needs."

Yolei looked around the beach, which was mostly desolate excepting a small grave marker and a line of phone booths. "This isn't what any of us needs," she said. "But maybe there's a little civilization around here somewhere." She marched to the booths.

"It's not going to work," Gabumon told Matt. "Those things are... I don't know. But I don't think they work like she thinks they will."

Matt looked from Gabumon to Yolei to Kari and sat down on the sand, crossing his arms. "She might as well try, Gabumon. Kari gets sick a lot, and Tai really worries about her."

Kari finally sat up. "I'm fine, really," she said. "Just a little cold. Honestly." Her school uniform was sopping wet like everyone else's, but there wasn't much that could be done about that except to let it dry in the sun.

Yolei reached the phones, got inside one, and carefully dialed 119. Then the American medical number, 911. Then 999. Then 112, and any other emergency phone number she could think of. The result of the call never changed. Instead of connecting her, issuing forth from the phone was a string of gibberish and a static sound in the background. "...city in Colorado empty... at Taiki's Funhouse Emporium! Fun for the whole... clergy met at-"

Yolei threw the phone aside. "No luck," she said once she rejoined the group. "The phones don't work at all." She turned to Kari. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Kari snapped. "I'm just not used to swimming in a violent river for half an hour."

Yolei shrugged. "Okay then, if you're sure." She looked around the beach again. "There's not much here," she remarked. "I'm surprised there aren't like, dozens of crab digimon or something."

"There are!" Agumon said. "Literally. They're called Crabmon. There's also things like Anomalocarimon. Really, there's a lot of us."

"How do you guys work, anyway?" Matt asked. "Do you eat each other, or something?"

Agumon and Gabumon exchanged a glance. "Sometimes," Agumon said, "but that's mostly for the bigger Digimon. The rest of us just eat whatever grows on trees. Especially now that the Primary Villages have been destroyed."

Kari forced herself back up, still shivering a little. "Primary Villages?"

"Where dead Digimon are reborn," Gabumon said. "There's normally one per island chain and dozens for any given continent. The Evil Generals wiped all of them out, and now no Digimon can be reborn. Most of us Digimon tried to stop fighting awhile ago, but so many of us have become infected by Black Gears or just gone crazy, so it's not really a long term solution." He wiped at his eyes. "There used to be billions of Digimon, I heard. There are plenty left, but we're starting to dwindle and in the continents places have become abandoned."

"That's awful," Tai said. "Where did these 'Evil Generals' come from?"

Neither Digimon knew, and said as much. "There's whispers that they might even have come from another world, but no one really believes that. They might be powerful, but they're not out of place for the Digital World really." Gabumon sighed. "My theory is they must have all met in some awful part of the world and made this arrangement between each other."

Agumon cut in. "The arrangement's changed though," he said. "Lately the Generals have been at war with each other, each one trying to get the biggest piece of territory. And there's those who stand against them. They might hold territory still as well, though it's probably limited."

Tai smiled. "That'll make dealing with those jerks easier!" he said.

"What are you talking about?" Matt asked. "Who said they were our problem? I feel bad for these guys too, but I don't really wanna go kill a bunch of jerks with armies. I don't think we'd stand a chance!"

"Well," Gabumon said, "there's a prophecy about you and your friends, and how you'd come to save the Digital World. I think that's why I've been waiting for you all this time."

None of the four children seemed to believe this in the slightest.

"I... sure..." said Matt. "But really, we don't belong here. We need to focus on finding a way to get home." He looked around. "If there's phone booths, even if they're weird, that means that somebody built them. So we just need to find out who did, and then we can talk to them about ways to cross dimensions. We can be back before dinnertime, I bet."

Yolei looked to the edge of the beach opposing the water, and to the hills sloping up from them. The forest began growing there, but when she squinted at the treetops she thought she saw smoke rising in the distance. "There might be a building there," she said, pointing. "The smoke doesn't seem that out of control, so it's probably not a forest fire."

"You ready to move, Kari?" Tai asked. She glared again, and he sighed. "Look, I'm just asking, okay?"

"Just stop, Tai," Kari said. "I'll tell you if we need to slow down, okay?" She took a determined pace and began to march to the slopes. Agumon followed her quickly, and Tai was right behind the both of them. The other three took a more leisurely approach, going somewhat slower at first but darting up the slope to catch up.

The forest was much sparser here than it had been on top of the cliff. Where before Tai had felt a little crammed in, here the trees were spaced apart by such large amounts that they found it easy to walk abreast of each other in all but a few places. They walked in silence, and in turn that made them realize how quiet the Digital World was. No bird song, no buzzing of tiny insects, even the wind blowing through the trees was much quieter than it should have been. It was eerie, listening to nothing but the sounds of their own footsteps.

Yolei snapped first. "Why do you think it was us?" she asked. When no one answered, she continued. "Us eight that ended up here, I mean. As opposed to anyone else."

"How should I know?" Matt asked, a tinge of bitterness in his voice. "I'm not really concerned about that. I just want to find TK as soon as possible and get out of here. I hope he ended up with the others, or one of the other Digimon at least. This place isn't safe."

"Don't worry," Tai said. "They probably ended up in a group just like we did."

Matt didn't point out that Tai wouldn't be nearly so calm if Kari wasn't right there beside him. He just turned away, pretending to be deeply engrossed in the kinds of trees growing all around them. In truth, most seemed entirely like Earth trees. A few were nothing more than white or brown cylinders, sticking up into the air with no leaves or signs of how they might obtain nutrients, but at this point in the day Matt didn't feel much surprise about it. The giant insect had seemed more troubling.

After some amount of walking, they reached the edge of the forest (or, perhaps merely a gigantic clearing within it). A few feet from the edge of the trees was an immense gray building. It seemed to be made out of dozens of cubes a couple meters across, stacked on top of and by each other and stretching back for quite a ways. Along the sides of every exterior cube were doorways leading into the facility, though there were no doors to speak of.

They slowly approached one of the entries. "Agumon, do you know what this place is?" Tai asked uncertainly. The dinosaur shook his head.

Yolei peered inside. The room was as gray and featureless as its exterior, excepting a small button visible next to each door. "Strange place," she remarked. "It's pretty modular I guess." She took a few steps inside.

"Wait!" Tai said. "Shouldn't someone with a Digimon go first?"

"Why?" Yolei shouted back to him. "There's no one here!"

It would have been the perfect time for something ironically awful to happen, but nothing did. After a tense pause, Kari followed Yolei in, and she too was followed by Matt, Gabumon and Agumon. Tai brought up the rear, muttering under his breath.

Yolei, not feeling she'd been entirely rash enough lately, pressed one of the buttons on the walls. A grid of off-white lines appeared along the floor, and the center of the floor opened up, the 'tiles' in the center rising and settling carefully atop of the tiles next to them. A large machine then rose out of the ground, unfolding itself and revealing itself to be a large basin ringed with several mechanical arms, though none of their functions seemed obvious.

It sat motionless for a few moments, but then the four central 'tiles' of the ceiling opened as well, and a black liquid splattered into the basin. Several of the mechanical arms began moving, pushing and molding the liquid into a perfect circle as it solidified into a large disc. The basin shifted, reshaping itself into a flat surface for the black circle to rest on. The material seemed to be emitting a large amount of heat, but once cooled, the other arms took to moving, activating small spinning blades and cutting away at the circle. When they were finished, the disc had become a gear.

And the gear took flight. Once again, the Digimon moved into action almost instantly, both shooting their fire at the gear. It dissolved into data instantly, but it both Digimon looked deeply concerned.

"What's wrong, Agumon?" Kari asked.

"I know where we are now. This is one of the places where Devimon mass-produces Black Gears!"

Matt got on his knees and looked at Gabumon, worried. "You've mentioned Black Gears a couple times now. What exactly are they?"

Gabumon looked down. "Well, we think it started when Devimon started looking into ways to enter your world. He couldn't ever quite get the job done correctly, but his evil did provide enough of a boost to open up a very small gate to a different sort of world: a world of darkness. He started mass-producing these gates and put the gears around them. If a gear gets into a Digimon, then the gateway starts to infect its core and it goes mad." He sighed. "Most of the victims try to kill anything they encounter."

"That's awful," Kari said. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

He didn't get a chance to answer, because illumination of the room suddenly turned red, and an alarm klaxon sounded in the distance, deep within the facility. The exterior doors suddenly disappeared, though the door leading further into the building remained open.

"Shit," Matt said. "Was that triggered because of us?"

"I don't know," Agumon said. "We should see if any other doors out of here are open, just in case." He didn't sound like he thought that there would be, but everyone agreed it was the best course of action and left the room, so they all did, as quietly as they could.

Deeper into the building, though it was obvious where each cube began and ended, they did blend together somewhat, creating rooms that were longer than usual, or taller, or any imaginable combination. Each room had buttons, but no one pressed any of them for fear of what they might do. No doors were sealed, except for those that seemed to lead out of the building (though in truth there was no way of telling if they did or not). No one appeared, angry or surprised by the fact that four humans were carelessly inspecting the facilities.

"Devimon must think no one would dare interfere with his work," Yolei observed after half an hour of wandering. "I wouldn't build these things in an unprotected facility. Someone might try to destroy it." She gave a meaningful glance at the two Digimon.

"We're not powerful enough for that," Agumon said. "You saw how we fared against Yanmamon. Believe me when I tell you that we couldn't even take down one of these walls if we wanted to."

They walked in silence a little more. When they came to the next sealed door, Tai asked, "Gabumon, you mentioned you were a Punimon once. Does that mean that you could become another Digimon now?"

Gabumon nodded. "Yes. At some point in my life I will have developed enough to become an adult Digimon. It will be a sudden transformation, and then I will be something completely different."

"He'll keep his personality," Agumon cut in. "Growing up doesn't change who you are or anything."

"Yes that's true. Though you will no longer be able to call me Gabumon, it is fair to say that I will still be me."

Matt considered this for a moment, and then asked, "What would I call you, when that happens?"

Gabumon shrugged. "I don't know. Each Digimon can become one of many other kinds of Digimon. It depends on how we're raised, at least to an extent."

The alarm klaxon suddenly shut off, but the door didn't open back up. Everyone exchanged a wary glance. "What's going to happen now?" Kari asked.

Her question was answered when the klaxons suddenly sounded much louder than they had a moment ago. A distant robotic voice, barely audible, announced, "Intruder location determined. Squad is converging."

Matt facepalmed. "We're screwed," he said.

"Don't be like that!" Tai said. "Maybe we can hide! Come on!" Once again grabbing Kari, Tai charged out of the room and started running, the others following him uncertainly. Tai's style of escape seemed to involve mostly turning haphazardly, perhaps even randomly (Matt was pretty sure Tai almost ran them in a full circle once before noticing it himself and veering off in a new direction).

It made little difference. Occasionally the robotic voice would be heard again, louder and closer each time. "Children detected," the voice said one final time before a gray robot with a blue dome on top of it stepped into the room. Its arms seemed too long for its body, and it appeared to have some sort of generator on its back providing power.

"Gyro Break," it said coolly, launching a variety of discs at the children. One missed, colliding with a wall and exploding, leaving a black mark and a small hole. The others landed at the group's feet, and only quick reflexes prevented them from becoming caught in the bulk of the blast.

Tai was the first one to struggle back up. "Kari!" he shouted. "Are you okay?!"

She didn't answer, but she did start pushing herself upward. The robotic Digimon was standing perfectly still, and let all four teens get back to their feet again before resuming motion. A red laser pointed straight at Tai.

"No!" Agumon shouted desperately, jumping towards Tai.

"Twin Laser," the robot announced, and the laser shot directly into Agumon, who crumpled onto the floor. Tai gasped and quickly bent beside Agumon.

"Are you okay?" he asked, inspecting the fallen dinosaur.

Agumon groaned. "I'm fine," he said, then coughed violently. "Well... I could use a break, but..." He looked up at Tai, concerned. "But I can't just..." He tried to push himself up, but failed.

"Agumon, come on!" Tai grabbed the Digimon and hoisted him onto his back. He tried to start running, but another explosion knocked him back onto his feet.

"Tai come on!" Yolei shouted. She moved to try to help Agumon, but an explosion knocked her back.

Tai managed to get upright, but the robot was next to him now, ready to fire another laser. "Dammit," he whispered, shutting his eyes, and preparing for the worst.

But the worst didn't come. A light overwhelmed Tai, so bright that it shone straight through his eyes. A voice, or maybe the impression of a voice, whispered into his head, "Greymon." There was a crash, and when Tai opened his eyes he found that parts of the ceiling had collapsed. Agumon was gone, and for the tiniest fraction of a second Tai thought he had been crushed by debris.

Then he saw the gigantic orange dinosaur that had replaced him. The thing was immensely large, towering over the room and the robot. He glared down at the machine, and with a single movement of his jaw produced an immense fireball that vaporized it in seconds.

And then there was another flash of light, and Greymon shrunk down to Agumon again.

"Wow," he whispered, before collapsing. Tai darted to his side.

"You okay?" he asked.

Agumon nodded. "I'm just tired, Tai," he explained. "Digivolving like that... It's not how it normally goes." He coughed again. "I'm not sure I was supposed to come back to this form either."

Kari stepped forward. "It was something to do with the little machine Tai has," she said. "It lit up right before you... digivolved."

Tai reached down and grabbed the little machine, examining it closely. As far as he could tell, it was as inert as ever, and while pressing random buttons caused various displays to open up (a clock, a blank square, a completely blank screen), it did not cause Agumon to change form in any way. "Huh," he said. "I didn't do it on purpose, Agumon." He looked at the rubble. They were, thankfully, on the outer edge of the building, and enough of a hole had been knocked into the wall that it would be possible to leave. "I guess it worked out though, huh?"

Agumon smiled. "Guess so."

Matt and Gabumon hopped through the hole. "Let's get out of here guys," he said. "I really want to find TK, and we won't do that standing around!"

Tai nodded. "Okay," he agreed. "Not sure how we'll meet back up with him, but... Let's see if we can't get back across that river. If we can get Greymon back, we won't even have all that hard a time getting around!"

Slowly, they worked their way out of the complex.

"Should we try to destroy it?" Yolei asked. "It wasn't that well-guarded."

Kari shook her head. "We don't have anything to destroy it with. Agumon needs a rest, and we'll need Gabumon to have strength to protect us with." She looked back at the facility. "Let's just remember where it is, and come back to take it out later, once we've gotten the whole gang together."

"That would be the best plan," Matt agreed, some distance from the others. "Come on," he said. "Let's get moving."

* * *

_Next time: Black Gears_

_Both groups of children deal with the evil technology that Devimon has created while attempting to reunite with each other._

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Hey guys. Chapter three done, more on the way, but first, I'd like to thank everyone who has submitted a review so far. Anyone who submits a review is most appreciated, and I'll try to get back to any questions/observations/etc. you have as soon as possible, probably through PM. However, as some of you ask questions I'm sure everyone would like the answer to, when possible I'll append my responses to those reviews at the end of these chapters. Again, everyone who submits anything, praise or criticism (but not flaming): Thank you, you really are appreciated. To respond to queries:

crestoflight3: Oh don't worry, I won't stop for some time.  
As for more Digidestined, well, all I'm going to say on that is that all four of them have the potential right now to be pulled into the team, but because they weren't at the field trip (and because it took a lot of effort for even the one portal to be opened), they weren't selected.

Ultimate Black Ace: I prefer to think of this as a combination of 01/02. While this arc will focus on Devimon (and later arcs on later 01 villains), 02 villains will appear as well.  
Mimi's dad took a job in the States because of his sudden love for the country after a Hawaiian vacation in March 2000. As such, she's not easily summoned; it takes a lot of effort to bridge the dimensions and it's a waste to pull in just one kid when eight were obtainable.  
As for Joe, he goes to a private upper-secondary school that focuses its students on careers in medicine. Tai, Matt, and Sora (the other high schoolers) didn't have good enough grades to get into a private school, though they aren't slackers either. School is just a lot more competitive.

See you guys next time. And if you have any questions about relatively non-spoilery things, feel free to ask. Worst case scenario I'll just say that I can't reveal the answer right now, and then you'll at least know your questions will be opened soon. Thanks for reading this far. Hope you follow me all the way to the end of this book, and ultimately, the end of the whole story.


	4. Black Gears

Chapter the Fourth: Black Gears

Sora stared at the purple mole in front of her. It would have seemed just as ridiculous as the title 'Evil General' if not for the fact that the thing was several times larger than her, and its drill was spinning rapidly. Its gaze flicked back and forth across the crowd, looking for anything that didn't look familiar. Finally, he noticed one of the four kids.

"There you are!" he said. "I've found you at last!"  
Sora took an uneasy step backward, and Biyomon flew up into the air. "Uh, no," the bird said nervously. "These aren't humans, they're... mutated Digimon! They were exposed to all sorts of things and now they don't look like any normal Digimon at all!"

"Drill Spin!" the Drimogemon shouted. An immense black drill fired into the air from his forehead, and Biyomon only narrowly dodged being hit by it. "I'm not an idiot. I know that four children were spotted by an Alraumon a little while ago, and that they match your descriptions!" He turned to the other Digimon, who were for the most part backed away. "Don't interfere with this," he said. "Once I've taken these four humans and their little allies, the rest of you will be free to go about your business as you always do. But if you strike back, I will be forced to take action against you."

The weird egg-creature stepped forward. "I do not think so," he said calmly. "I am aware of what possession you suffer. You have a weak point, and once it is addressed, you will no longer be interested in the task at hand."

Drimogemon smirked. "Yes, the Black Gears," he agreed. "I wouldn't bother trying to attack mine, it is quite well protected."

"I think otherwise. Nightmare Syndrome!" A black orb, terrible to behold, appeared in the crack in the egg where Digitamamon's eyes were, and then shot towards the Drimogemon. However, the other had prepared for it, and cruelly turned his eye towards a cluster of child Digimon and fired a drill into their midst.

Sora didn't even bother looking to see if the Black Gear had broken or not, her eyes were riveted to the smoke issuing from where the children had been standing. When it cleared, there was nothing left. They had all died.

There were mutters and gasps that rippled through the rest of the community. The egg Digimon looked downward, sighing deeply. The Drimogemon, no longer corrupted, was forgotten and stood in the middle of the crowd, asking anyone nearby what had happened. Whether out of disgust or pity, no one answered.

"This place..." TK whispered, looking down as well. Davis and Sora didn't say anything, both staring at the gap where the Digimon had stood.

"I had feared something like that would happen," the egg Digimon said. "I am not as quick as I used to be."

"It's not your fault," Izzy started. "Another Digimon could have attacked him from behind while-"

The egg Digimon's eyes narrowed and he turned on Izzy sharply. "Each passing year Devimon has refined the lack Gears, and they now grant power beyond that of a normal adult Digimon! I am the only one in the village who has both the power and finesse to ensure I destroy the gear, and not the individual it controls!"

"Additionally," another Digimon cut in, "the Drimogemon wasn't here because of him. He was here because of you guys!"

"Yeah!" a bird Digimon shouted. "You guys are the cause of the trouble!"

"We don't want you around here!"

The children hurriedly took several steps backward. "We didn't know someone would be chasing us!" Davis said, winning over exactly zero of the hearts or minds of the crowd. "We just wanted to get away from the wild Digimon who were so dangerous!"

"They're right," the egg Digimon said. "You four will just attract more attention from Devimon. I would help you if I could, but I have an entire village to look after." He looked away from the children briefly, and then said calmly, "Give them enough supplies for three days, and then they'll be on their way!" He turned back to the children. "Agreed?"

* * *

The sun was setting on Tai's group when they took a real break. Tai and Matt were both sweating slightly in their uniforms, but Kari had come off the worst and had basically collapsed against a tree, breathing heavily. Yolei looked on with concern but said nothing, for fear that Kari's frustrations would be directed towards her.

"We still haven't found a river crossing yet," Matt said angrily. "How the hell are we going to find TK if we can't even find a way to where he is?"

Tai sighed. "Look Matt, we took a pretty big detour. It's possible him and the others followed the cliff directly and found a crossing, and we'll catch up to them soon enough. The river can't go on forever!"

Yolei almost said, "There are much better odds he went any other direction and we'll never manage to find them," but decided against it when Matt punched a tree in frustration. Or tried to. His arm just kept going and he stumbled forward slightly in alarm, partially disappearing into the tree.

"Dammit what is with this place?" he demanded, stepping back out of the tree.

Agumon and Gabumon exchanged a glance. "If we could find a big enough tree," Agumon suggested, "we could hide in one of those trees for the night. Even if we don't knowing about a few hiding places will keep us safe from evil Digimon."

"But if we fall asleep, we risk sticking a limb out here and giving everyone away," Tai said. "Better to keep going and find an alcove or something where one of us can take watch."

"We can't stop yet!" Matt said. "We need to find TK!"

Kari glared up at Matt. "We know, Matt," she said impatiently. "But you're not gonna do that if you pass out."

Matt rolled his eyes. "Oh right, like I'm the one who is going to fall over dead of pneumonia any second now."

"Hey! Leave my sister's illnesses out of this!"

"What are you going to do, make me?"

Yolei jumped between the two boys. "Enough!" she shouted. "Look! We don't know where we are or where we're going, and we can't get into a fight like this. If we split up because we get angry, that puts the eight of us in at least three groups, maybe more. We'll never unite again if we do that."

Matt looked away guiltily. "All right, fine. We can stop for a few hours, once the sun is fully down, okay?"

Yolei and Tai both started to turn to Kari, who cut in sharply, "I can keep going, okay?" Then they nodded in assent, and after another few minutes of rest, the six set off again, none of them noticing the small black gear floating in the air after them.

* * *

The others were in fact heading in the wrong direction, deciding to keep the sun out of their eyes for the evening. Each one now had small backpack and a roll on top of it for a sleeping bag. Inside their backpacks was a small portion of the food of the village they'd left. Additionally, Davis and Izzy now carried a waterskin.

"The hiking part of this isn't so bad," Davis remarked after another swig of water. When no one laughed, he deflated a little.

"It's the rest of this that sucks," TK said. Izzy and Sora nodded. Each of them (and Davis, though he was trying to hide it) could still see the explosion of smoke as the drill collided with the child Digimon. Most of them had been such tiny little things too.

Davis finally nodded too, and turned to Tentomon. "How common is this going to be?" he asked. "Like, once a week, right?"

Tentomon chuckled darkly. "Attacks usually happen multiple times a day. The Evil Generals are probably trying to render us all extinct."

"And the one called here has Black Gears?" Sora asked. "And they... possess Digimon?"

"That's right," Biyomon said wearily.

There was silence for a long time after that, but then Izzy had a question of his own to add. "And the Black Gears, they're not permanent? If you destroy one, its effects wear off?"

Tentomon nodded, and then they were quiet again, though Izzy was muttering under his breath a little.

"I wonder how the others are doing," TK said. "It can't be as badly as this."

"I wouldn't say we're doing badly," Biyomon said, a faked cheeriness in voice. "I mean, none of us have been hurt yet, and we've got some supplies! I've never even had supplies-" She stopped suddenly. "Hey look, the edge of the forest!" She picked up speed and flapped her way ahead of the others.

When they caught up with her, the children saw a large green plain stretching outward. Far in the distance was an inordinately tall mountain that seemed to go up forever if you tried to trace it from base to peak. Much closer were the edges of other forests, interweaving across the island together. Regardless, the plains were impressive, and no movement was noted.

Sora stepped out of the forest and looked into the sky. "Damn," she whispered. "It's still too bright for the stars to be out."

"Why do you want to see the stars?" Davis asked, firmly convinced that Sora had entirely the wrong priorities.

TK laughed. "It's something she and I learned in summer camp about five years ago now. If you look up at the sky and find about where the north star is, you know how far north you are."

"Five years ago?" Izzy asked. "That's funny. My mom and dad almost sent me to summer camp too that year, but I begged them to let me go to a series of computer workshops instead." He sighed. "I had a pretty good laptop back then too. Wish I had it with me now. It has a lot of nice music on we could listen to before we go to bed tonight."

Sora smiled. "You weren't the only one who didn't go. There were several cancellations that summer. Tai and Kari were supposed to come too, but Kari got so sick and Tai couldn't bear to be at camp while she was in the hospital. There were a couple other empty spots too, which is unusual. Most years that camp filled up really fast."

"Huh," Davis muttered.

"Unusual, but not that much of a big deal. Everyone has off years, I guess. Must have been nice, too, to have a little more space in the cabins."

"Guys?" Davis said.

Sora nodded. "It was a little weird though, seeing an empty bed with something like 'Tachikawa Miko' scrawled on it."

"Guys!"

They turned to Davis. He was pointing at a large bird flying across the skies. "That thing turned towards us once it noticed us," he said nervously. "And I doubt it's friendly!"

As it drew closer, it became obvious that the creature was less bird and more jet-propelled pterodactyl. Izzy stared in shock. "How is that thing even remotely aerodynamic?" he asked, almost sounding angry at the creature for flying in such a preposterous fashion.

It began to dive.

* * *

The Black Gear followed the group patiently and methodically, darting behind trees and into bushes to avoid detection. For the most part, no one even noticed it, though at one point Gabumon remarked on the rustling noises he heard in the bushes. However, it flattened itself to the ground, and when the bush was investigated and nothing was seen, the children moved on. It was not until their next break that it took action, slowly revving itself up by rotating faster and faster until it was a blur, and then launching itself at the nearest possible target: Agumon.

The dinosaur roared in pain and was suddenly subsumed by a dark purple light, which grew horrifically. When it had faded, Greymon stood in Agumon's place, his eyes red with corrupted fury.

"Agumon!" Tai shouted in terror. "What the he-"

The lizard surged forward, his mouth opening and a gigantic burst of flame shooting from it. Tai fell over in surprise and narrowly missed being singed. A tree behind him ignited, and the one next to it, and the one next to it. Tai scrambled to the side and dodged another fireball.

"It's a Black Gear!" Gabumon exclaimed. Yolei and Kari had already taken off into the trees (the direction that was not yet on fire), but Matt and his partner remained and dashed to help Tai back up. "Come on, we need to get out of here!"

Tai turned back to Greymon in terror as he was dragged forward. "But... Agumon was our friend," he said.

"It doesn't matter now!" Matt retorted.

Gabumon agreed. "Unless we manage to destroy that gear, he's like this forever. And I'm not strong enough."

Greymon began to roar behind them as his slow pace meant he was outstripped. Another couple fireballs were spit at them, but each missed as Greymon's accuracy diminished with distance. The whole situation might merely have been a tragic loss if it weren't for the sudden buzzing of insect wings.

* * *

TK pushed Sora to the side and the two of them narrowly rolled out of the way of the dive. Izzy wasn't so lucky and was knocked backward several meters, groaning.

Tentomon rubbed his wings together and electricity shot forth, but the giant pterodactyl was unaffected. Biyomon's spiral flames were equally unimpressive. The Digimon shot itself back into the air again, turned around, and aimed once more, coming into another impressive dive right at the children.

Izzy attempted to rise slightly and leap sideways, but he was moments too slow and was scooped up quickly. The pterodactyl circled above them cruelly, rising higher and higher while the two child Digimon desperately tried to keep up. Finally, the dinosaur let go, and Izzy plummeted.

"No!" Tentomon shouted as he became enveloped in a white light. When he emerged, he was completely different; now a giant blue beetle of some kind with a gray horn. "Kabuterimon!" he announced triumphantly. He accelerated quickly and grabbed Izzy, who climbed carefully to a perfect perch on Kabuterimon's back.

Kabuterimon circled around, trying to get behind the evil Digimon. "I don't see the Black Gear!" he shouted.

Izzy pointed to a small point below the left rocket. "Is that it?"

Kabuterimon turned rapidly and moved his legs into a complex formation. An immense ball of electrical energy formed between them, and then shot at the pterodactyl. The gear shattered.

* * *

Tai stared in shock as dozens of Yanmamon began to surround them. "Matt you need to do something!" he shouted angrily.

"Me? What can I do?" Matt asked.

"Gabumon is your Digimon! If he's gonna digivolve, it's gonna be because of you!" Tai didn't point out that he had no idea how exactly Agumon had first done it, but the point was not lost on Matt, who glared in frustration.

"What do you want me to do? Throw myself at them?"

Another fireball suddenly interrupted their discussion. Several of the Yanmamon disappeared into data and everyone turned towards the rampaging Greymon. His back against the flames, he seemed even more feral than before, and his eyes now glowed a sharp reddish-orange. He opened his mouth again, and more Yanmamon disappeared.

"Gabumon, can you do anything at all?" Matt asked desperately. The Digimon shook his head, but nonetheless stepped forward and fired a jet of blue fire. It made little effect, and Greymon responded with a fireball of his own, knocking Gabumon backwards, his fur blackened. "Gabumon!" Matt shouted.

And that was enough. With a flash of light, Gabumon became "Garurumon!" The large white wolf with blue stripes of his own stared down the large dinosaur. He lunged forward, crying out, "Subzero Ice Fang," and biting fiercely into Greymon's skin. The dinosaur fell back.

"No! Don't hurt him!" Tai shouted angrily. "Find the gear!"

Garurumon shot Tai an irked look, and then carefully hopped over the enraged Digimon. From the back the large Black Gear was evident, and Garurumon launched a ray of cold fire straight at it, causing it to combust and then melt away.

Greymon melted into Agumon and fell forward. "What happened?" he whispered.

Tai hugged Agumon before responding, smiling brightly. "It's okay buddy," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"Maybe we should worry about the fire!" Kari shouted, pointing at the advancing flames.

"On me," Garurumon said, bending his knees. The children dashed onto him, and he rose again, darting into the woods and escaping the flames.

* * *

The sun had set, and Izzy and Davis began setting camp in the dark. Neither said much, both were frustrated. The Pteranomon (as it was called) had flown off angrily as soon as he'd been freed from the Black Gear, denying everything. The work was slow and difficult, for no one could see much of anything, but once Sora and TK returned with firewood, things got a little better. Without much interest in conversation, the four and their Digimon fell asleep.

A few miles away, the other four (and their Digimon were attempting the same thing, but some without success.

* * *

_Next time: Book of Kindness Round 1: Tai and Yolei_

_Two nervous teens bond over the sheer impossibility of their situation._

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Hey again! Thanks for the reviews everyone; keep it up if you've got something to say!

Guest: Yes. But I'm not saying which.


	5. Book of Kindness 01: Tai and Yolei

_Sometimes, it's important to have character interaction outside of the context of the usual extremes of violence and action. Sometimes, a softer touch is needed. The Book of Kindness exists for that, and its chapters will be found scattered throughout the entire story, one round for each possible pair of children. At the moment, there are twenty-eight possible pairs, which means twenty-eight rounds are guaranteed to be shown. This is the first._

* * *

Book of Kindness

Round 1: Tai and Yolei

Tai came back from a small copse of trees that had been doubling as a toilet for the kids while they stayed the night to find Yolei still awake, staring up at the night sky. "Hey," he whispered, sitting next to her.

"Hi," she said, still staring up at the stars instead of turning to him. "I couldn't really sleep."

Tai chuckled. "I can't blame you," he said, looking up as well. He couldn't recognize any of the stars above them at all, though that was in part because the sky kept 'glitching'; entire areas going dark briefly before returning, or one segment of the sky being copy-pasted across the entire field of view. He looked away hurriedly – it was too discomforting to contemplate.

"This place really is falling apart," Yolei said, still staring. "When Gabumon said we were supposed to save the Digital World, I thought he just meant free it, but..." She trailed off when the night sky flashed pure white for a second, and then was replaced by a night half-filled with aurora and half covered in clouds.

Tai nodded. "I'm not so sure that we'll be getting home anytime soon," he said. "This definitely isn't Earth."

"What if there isn't a way back?" Yolei asked, uncertainty in her voice. "What if we're gonna be here the rest of our lives?"

"I don't believe that," Tai said, though he didn't sound convinced. "We can't think like that," he added, trying to sound more confident. "We have to work under the assumption that there is a way home and that we'll get there soon."

Yolei didn't say anything for a long time. "But those Evil Generals," she said, "I don't think they're be easy to deal with. Something tells me that Greymon and Garurumon are not going to be able to fight their way through all of them."

"Well, that's why we had seven Digimon to start with," Tai said. "If we can find the others and the Digimon who left-"

"We'll have six," Yolei said. "Patamon died, remember?"

Another long pause followed that as Tai tried to come up with a retort, but finally he gave up. "Yeah, that's a problem. But if Digimon can be reborn, there might be some kind of hope." He shrugged. "I think we can do this, though. And maybe we don't have to beat all of them. If we can find a portal home, I think we should take it unless we know for certain Earth'll be in danger too."

"Knowing our luck..." Yolei muttered.

Tai laughed again, this time much more darkly. "Yeah," he admitted. "That's a definite concern." He looked over to Kari, who was sleeping fitfully on the ground nearby. Gabumon had removed his fur coat and draped her in it, but only on the condition that no one looked, and he was now hidden under Matt's shirt. Matt, topless, was shivering slightly. "I hope Kari'll be okay," he said.

"You seem awfully concerned about her," Yolei said. "Is it just like how Matt's being a little overprotective of TK, or is something else going on?"

Tai sighed. "Kari's got some kind of condition, maybe an autoimmune disease, doctors can't identify," he said. "She gets sick a lot, and usually ends up in the hospital multiple times a year." He gulped. "I try to look out for her, but since Mom and Dad are pretty strict about things too, she just gets angry because... well, to be fair sometimes we probably are worrying a little too much, but other times she isn't paying attention to her limits."

Yolei stared at the slightly younger girl, considering her for some time. "I never really noticed she got sick that much, but I guess I'm in the next year up so I don't see her class that much. If I didn't walk to school with TK, I probably wouldn't even have seen her before."

"So you and TK are friends? Huh."

"What's so weird about that?" Yolei demanded.

Tai raised his arms up, waving them. "I didn't mean like that. I just mean, whenever I went to your guys's school, TK and Davis seemed pretty inseparable. It's hard to imagine the two of them having different interests."

Yolei nodded. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Me and TK aren't super close, but we do hang out sometimes. It's gonna be kinda sad in a couple years when I get into high school, because we probably won't see each other a lot. It's what happened last year, when he was still in elementary and I was in junior high." When Tai didn't say anything for awhile, she asked, "Who do you hang out with?"

"Out of the eight of us, I don't really. I mean, Kari is my sister so I see her a lot, but my other friends and I drifted apart. Sora used to be a tomboy and we played soccer all the time, but things got... complicated." When Yolei smiled, he added, "Not that kind of complicated, jeez!"

"Anyway," he continued, "I also used to hang out with Izzy a few years back because our moms knew each other, but he kind of..." Tai searched for words for a little while. "Well, back then, he was just a smart computer guy. Maybe a little too focused on them, but he was willing to come outside a lot. Sometimes he begged me to come over. He didn't really get along with his folks because..." He cut himself off. "I guess he's already told you, since you know him now. And if he hasn't, it's not my business to talk about it."

Yolei sighed. "Some day I'd like to find out," she admitted. "Seeing him around his family is just depressing sometimes."

Tai agreed, but added, "It really is the kind of personal stuff that he should only talk about when he wants to. Sorry. Anyway, a couple years into our friendship, he just got geekier and geekier and stopped being interested in doing things and just wanted to watch sci fi shows all the time. Soon he wasn't even friendly, so I stopped talking to him."

"He is pretty antisocial," Yolei agreed. "And he doesn't really pay as much attention in school as he should any more. He's not gonna get into a good high school if he doesn't turn his grades around. It's depressing to watch, because he is smart, he's just not learning about anything that would help him right now."

Tai laid down, shutting his eyes to avoid the sky, still shifting above them. "I think he'll get his act together," Tai said. "Sometimes I dunno if I'll get mine together though. I could only get into the public high school. I don't even really know what I'm gonna do for a career, to be honest."

"I'm not too sure myself," Yolei admitted. "Though I guess I've got a lot more time to figure out. My mom basically will be happy if I just find myself a husband and become a housewife like her, but that's not really what I want to do. Maybe I'll be a programmer. Mom would-" She suddenly started laughing.

Tai stared at her until she subsided, and then she tried to explain. "It's just, thinking about my mom made me think about all the siblings I have, and that... well, it's pretty cramped in the apartment with four of us, and now here I am who knows how far away from home, huddled up with three other people like always."

Tai chuckled too. "That's... well, would you rather not have us around?"

They kept laughing for a little bit, Yolei wiping at her eyes. "Must be hysteria," she muttered. And then she too laid down, her head resting near Matt's feet. "We should probably go to sleep, shouldn't we?"

"Yeah..." Tai agreed, though he didn't feel particularly tired and doubted Yolei did either. "It'll probably be a long day tomorrow..."

They laid in silence for some time, but neither started to sleep. The others slumbered on, Agumon snoring lightly and whimpering in his sleep. Finally, Yolei said, "I wonder if Mom even noticed I didn't come home today."

"I'm sure she did..." Tai said, suddenly realizing his own mother would be deeply concerned by their absence. "My mom must be worried sick about Kari, and probably me a bit too."

Yolei noted the bitterness in Tai's voice. "I'm sure she's worried about both of you," she said firmly. "And hopefully she realizes that you're gonna be taking good care of Kari until we find a way back home. I wonder what all our classmates must be thinking, for us to have disappeared like that so suddenly."

"I wish I was left behind, so I could see the looks on everyone's faces," Tai joked.

"I wish I was left behind, so I wasn't here," Yolei said.

Tai nodded. "Yeah..." he agreed.

Neither said anything else after that, and soon both had drifted off to sleep.

* * *

_Next time: Portals_

_The decay of this strange new world becomes more obvious when each team discovers a hole in space leading to a faraway continent ruled by a power who isn't affiliated with the Evil Generals at all._

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

These will probably be some of my favorite chapters to write, in part because they'll all be shorter than the usual fair and in part because I deeply enjoy writing conversations (as you might have already guessed). They also allow me to ensure that everyone has a chance to show the development from a relatively divorced group to (hopefully) a cohesive unit; the problem with eight characters is that it's hard to give each of them a chance to interact. I also got some reviews, so here's the responses I sent the reviewers, so that the rest of you can enjoy the information within. Funnily enough, these two reviews addressed a similar issue.

Crystal A. Kanbara: Thanks! TK and Davis being best friends is one of those subtle changes I'm making to emphasize the differences between the canon characters and these. In this world, when TK transferred into Davis and Kari's class, Kari hadn't met him before and so Davis never felt threatened by him and was probably one of the more welcoming people in the class as a result. Naturally they couldn't help but be friends and ended up best pals by mid 7th grade, which is about when this story takes place.  
As for Davis and Yolei, read and find out. We're getting pretty close to a chapter where one of them gets a chance to shine.

Lord Jaric:  
Thanks for the kind words!  
TK and Davis are close friends because Adventure 01 never happened, so Davis didn't feel threatened by TK's arrival - Kari didn't know the kid as anyone in particular. They've spent the past two years hanging out. As for Kari... all of the kids are designed to be at least a little bit off, and Kari probably more so than others. Not going to the Digital World has affected them all, even though they don't quite realize it yet.  
As for the books, you got it in one; the order is crest activation. And also a "Book of Kindness" is broken up and scattered throughout the other books.

For those who don't quite remember, the order of crest activation was Courage (1.20), Friendship (1.23), Knowledge (1.24), Love (1.26), Sincerity (1.35), Reliability (1.36), Light (1.37), and Hope (1.52).


	6. Portals

Chapter the Fifth: Portals

Kari woke to light. She sat up groggily, thinking that it couldn't possibly be morning yet. She held up the weird little device that had appeared before her on Earth the previous day and pressed the button that activated the clock. She was right. It was only about three in the morning. "Sky must be acting up again," she decided, laying back down and rolling away from the rising sun.

Something seemed wrong though, even if she couldn't quite place it. There was a lot of wind, but that didn't seem too wrong. There was also a familiar smell she couldn't quite place. Finally, she pushed herself back up and looked around properly. The area was filled with light, but it wasn't coming from the sky.

Instead, the light poured forth from a... Kari couldn't describe it. On all sides of the thing was the plains they'd rested in, and what was visible behind it showed the blackened forest ruined by last night's fire. But at the edges of the thing was a band of white light, and inside it... Well, to be honest, inside it was another forest. But this wasn't the same, Kari was quite sure of that. The night sky outside of the... hole... was surprisingly constant, but within the hole the daylight shown still. Not quite strongly (it seemed the sun was setting), but still unmistakably.

She gently urged Tai and Agumon awake. "What is that?" she asked.

Agumon shuddered looking at it. "It's part of the decay of our world," he said. "The whole place is becoming intertwined. That place is pretty far away," he added, looking at the sunset. "We should probably just get moving."

Kari stared at the hole a little longer. "Is it just me," she asked, "or is it getting bigger?"

Neither Tai or Agumon responded or even looked back, they just worked all the quicker to rouse Matt, Gabumon, and Yolei.

"Are they stable?" Yolei asked once everything had been explained and they began their walk away from it.

"Definitely not," Gabumon said. "They disappear at random, and appear randomly as well." He sighed as another hole appeared directly in front of them. "They tend to cluster, as well."

The team as a whole turned right and started running (though not too fast, just to be on the safe side), and then stopped suddenly when another portal, floating in mid-air and perfectly horizontal, appeared in front of them. The only signs it was there was the band of white light and an immense of heat shimmering out of it.

"Dammit!" Matt shouted. "How are we going to get out of here?!"

Yolei looked around desperately, and pointed quickly a bit behind the team and to the left. "That way! No portals so far!"

The gang took off, easily avoiding all of the portals that began opening. What they didn't count on, however, was an immense wave bursting out of one of them, pushing the gang to the side suddenly. They sputtered and struggled against the water desperately, but could not pull themselves out of it and were shoved through another portal.

* * *

When Sora awoke, the sun seemed to be rising comfortably in the west. She sighed. "Stupid sky," she muttered, leaving the tent and stretching, unconcerned. Sora felt surprisingly tired, but decided it was almost certainly because of the unusual circumstances. She looked over to the forest to find some of the meat trees Biyomon had talked about, but found to her surprise that none were evident. In fact, hardly any trees were there at all. A large grassy plain stretched out, divided only by two rivers meeting in a powerful surge of water.

Sora quickly shook Izzy awake.

"What's wrong?" he muttered, looking around. "And why am I so tired?" he sighed and stood up. "Sleeping on the ground is awful," he added, because Sora was too busy stuttering about their circumstances to get a word in edgewise.

She finally spit it out. "Look around! We're not where we went to sleep!" She pointed around her. "Where are we?" she demanded. "What's going on?"

Tentomon looked up sleepily. "Can you keep it down?" he asked. "I'm..." Both teens glared at him, and he stopped. "What's wrong?" he asked, righting himself and looking around.

Sora sighed, woke the others, and explained carefully. The Digimon exchanged glances, both seeming confused. "There's one thing that could do this," Biyomon said, "but if it's what I think it is, then things are getting worse."

"There are portals forming every day now," Tentomon said in his unusual accent. "The first few were artificial and built by the Evil Generals to move resources between their various capitals before they fell against each other. Sometime after their wars began, the portals began appearing at random, anywhere and everywhere.

"But," he added, "The thing is, they're usually quite blatant. You're supposed to feel going through one; little things like humidity and air pressure are usually different on each side of the portal. And while one could have opened below us, the odds of it safely depositing us somewhere else without us even noticing..."

Izzy paled. "You mean, one could have just opened below us and thrown us kilometers into the sky, and we wouldn't even know it? We'd just die?"

TK and Davis exchanged a dark look. "We do have a giant insect," TK said. "If one of us woke up while we were still falling and Kabuterimon carried us all out of our fall..."

"The odds of that are low," Izzy noted. "But yes, I suppose that's true. I guess the question then, is where exactly are we?"

"I've never seen this on the island before," Biyomon said. "So we're probably no longer in File Island."

Davis laughed. "Great. We now know that, on a planet of unknown size, we're not on a tiny fraction of the land surface of it. That really helps."

Glaring, Sora said, "It does let us know that we can't fully rely on these Digimon to serve as guides for us."

"Look!" Izzy pointed at a... hole... that suddenly opened up in the middle of the field. "I think that's one of them!"

The children regathered their supplies and began a dash away from the portals. Unlike the others, they were not followed by them and soon found themselves further into the grassy plains. It seemed to stretch in all directions, though the occasional tree was visible. The sky was refreshingly stable here, remaining the same light blue shade and having its clouds not jitter across the sky in skips and spasms so much as move them gently from horizon to horizon. The only sign of civilization was a pure black tower, rising majestically and coming into a point. A shimmer sometimes appeared around it, but each soon faded.

"I wonder who built those," Davis said.

Tentomon sighed. "I'm afraid I don't know. It might be some sort of travel marker for anyone journeying through the wilderness. The continents of the Digital World are supposed to be gigantic, after all. It must be quite easy to get lost."

Everyone, enjoying the proper sky, crept closer to the tower, resting in its shade for a minute. TK yawned and sat down against it. "You know, you guys mentioned this was a Digital World, but it doesn't really seem to be made out of data. I'd imagine a lot more zeroes or ones."

"Maybe we're in a virtual reality program and all of this is being rendered in front of us," Izzy said. "That would explain the glitches in the sky as well as the portals." He frowned. "It's awfully advanced technology, though. I can't imagine who built this place."

They pondered in silence a little longer when Sora suddenly pointed to the sky. "What's that?" she asked, "another Digimon?"

They looked up at it. It seemed to be a long, blue snake (with a black stripe forming a ring along its body) floating through the sky, with red wings and a white head. Something indistinct was riding it. It slowly lowered itself down to them, circling overhead gently. The rider became more distinct; a boy about TK and Davis's age in a blue uniform with a flowing robe. He dismounted with a leap, landing gracefully on his feet.

"Hello again," he said. "It's been quite a while, hasn't it?"

Everyone exchanged confused glances. "What?" Davis asked.

The boy smiled cruelly and pulled out a small black machine, shaped like an oval. "Didn't think I, the Digimon Emperor, would find you after all this time?" He pressed a button on the machine. "Perhaps. But in these years I've had plenty of opportunities to manipulate my technology. I've even found a way to exempt my own Digimon from the Control Spires. It's amazing what a digivice can do."

There was a flash from above the giant flying serpent, and it became apparent that the boy was not its only passenger. A giant bug emerged briefly, but with a shout of "Stingmon!" it became a green humanoid insect.

"Destroy them," the boy said, stepping to the side while the Stingmon flew at them.

Instinctively, the children dived out of the way. Tentomon tried to shock the Stingmon but did only the most minimal amount of damage. Davis and TK started to run across the plains, but the giant blue serpent flew faster and blocked off their path. They turned and started running back towards the group.

Izzy looked at the boy's 'digivice', and started pressing the buttons on his own model desperately. One of the three screens displayed a filled indicator of some sort, but flashing across it was an error message. "Is this what causes digivolution?" he muttered. "Then why is it blocked?" He looked up. "Sora, press all the buttons on your digivice! Tell me if you see any error messages!" Then Izzy started running as Stingmon turned its attention to him.

Sora followed all of Izzy's instructions. "Yes!" she shouted. "What's the problem!"

"I don't know!" Izzy admitted.

Stingmon grabbed Biyomon with one hand and a purple blade extended from his other wrist. He readied his aim as the bird struggled. "No!" Sora shouted, but even though her digivice started to glow and shake, nothing happened. A great shimmer appeared around the Control Spire, but still Biyomon did not change.

Davis grabbed a rock and threw it at the hostile Digimon. "Let her go!" he shouted.

Stingmon turned around, letting go of Biyomon, who flew up into the air. The Emperor chuckled. "You aren't going to try any of your actual tricks?" he asked. "Very well. Stingmon, eliminate him."

The Emperor's Digimon launched himself towards Davis, energy sword outstretched. The boy flinched, and suddenly felt liquid splashing against him, but his sudden death did not arrive. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at Tai, Matt, Kari, and Yolei, along with two more Digimon, huddled on top of Stingmon, all of them sitting in a slowly expanding puddle. The Stingmon reverted to a harmless looking bug.

"Dammit," the Emperor said. "Wormmon, can't you do anything?" He turned to the blue serpent. "Airdramon, eliminate all of them."

Airdramon rose up and faced the eight teens and their Digimon.

"Tai," Kari whispered. "Look at that ring on it. It doesn't look natural," she said. "Maybe it's like one of those Black Gears?"

Tai grinned. "Agumon, digivolve!"

Nothing happened, and the children were forced to scatter as a variety of needles shot out of Airdramon. The four Digimon retaliated with useless attacks while the Emperor and Wormmon looked on dispassionately.

"What's wrong with him?" Matt asked.

TK sighed. "Something about a Control Spire. Biyomon and Tentomon couldn't digivolve either." He pointed to the ring. "If someone could just get close enough to that..." he suggested.

Matt nodded. "Hey uh, Biyomon, Tentomon? Are either of you strong enough to lift Gabumon up onto Airdramon?"

"Yes!" the pink bird shouted, shooting off a spiral of green flame while Airdramon was occupied with the land-bound Agumon and Gabumon. She swooped in, grabbed Gabumon, and (with all the grace of a walrus in the Sahara) somehow flew Gabumon up to Airdramon, dropping him by the ring.

"Blue blaster!" Gabumon shouted as Biyomon unleashed another spiral of flame and Tentomon, who had followed, let off a shock of his own. The ring on the Airdramon cracked suddenly, and dissolved into dust.

"What...?" he muttered. "Wh... where am I?"

Yolei waved from below. "Your mind was taken over by that ring put on you!" she shouted. "The ring was put in place by this guy!" Yolei pointed dramatically at the Emperor, who laughed.

"Did you really think," he asked as Airdramon flew at him menacingly, "that he was the only member of my army I brought along?" The Emperor pulled another small device out of his pocket, and pressed the button on it.

The earth began to rumble menacingly, and nearly everyone was knocked over. When the dust settled, a large number of the purple mole Digimon had burrowed out of the ground. The children stared in shock, and the Airdramon landed dramatically alongside them. "Get on!" he shouted. Hurriedly, all twelve (eight children, four Digimon) gathered atop him, and he took off.

Several powerful drills shot after them, but Airdramon moved with such grace that it was no issue.

"We need to get the hell out of this whole country," Tai said. "Where's the nearest safe place?"

"I don't know!" Airdramon said. "It feels like it's been months since I was thinking for myself!" He looked at the landscape below them, the plains giving way to impenetrable forests and beyond them mountains rising. "We'll go to the mountains," he decreed finally. "It is likely the safest place, for all the land beyond the Meridian Mountains was ruled by the benevolent god of the north last I checked."

The children exchanged glances. "Can you tell us anything about this god?" Tai asked. "What's he like?"

Airdramon chuckled. "Patience. You will meet him soon enough, and in the meantime I need a chance to gather my thoughts. Even without the Dark Ring I feel its dark influence on my mind. Leave me in peace until I am over the forests, please."

The children agreed by beginning conversation with each other, each relating their stories while waiting for Airdramon to explain to them the circumstances they were in.

* * *

_Next time: The Digital Elements_

_The god of the north sends the children back to the lands ruled by the Emperor to find a weapon that allows digivolution in the presence of Control Spires._


	7. The Digital Elements

Chapter the Sixth: The Digital Elements

The mountains gave way to more forests, and these forests seemed to stretch out forever. The children related what had happened to them and their Digimon did the same, and everyone felt relieved that no one was injured besides a few scrapes and bruises picked up along the way. Once the catching up was over, everyone felt too tired to continue to socialize, and so they dozed in and out of sleep until Airdramon came to a landing.

An immense castle stood nearby, oval-shaped and cresting in a dome. Immense triangular windows rose out of the structure, giving it a spiked impression. Its dark coloration did not make it seem particularly inviting, and the decay to its structure was telling as well. Once perhaps the green paint had been fresh, but now it had faded almost all away.

"This is where a god lives?" Tai asked in surprise. "It seems so decrepit."

Airdramon seemed concerned. "The palace has decayed since I last saw it. This is very disconcerting. Xuanwumon normally kept a clean place."

The children looked closely at the castle. Nothing seemed to be moving within, nor were any sounds emanating from it. They all approached the door cautiously. Sora called inside. "Hello?"

A whirring sound became evident, soon replaced by a humming. It was not, however, coming from within the palace, but from without. Everyone swung around hurriedly, expecting Devimon or the Emperor or something far worse. And yet, the thing that faced them did not seem all that threatening. Another giant, floating snake, this one was covered in golden metal.

Airdramon turned to him. "Do you know what happened to this place?" the Digimon asked.

The larger golden snake shut his eyes, looking down sadly. "Yes," he said. "It is a tragic tale. The four gods have all disappeared." He sighed. "Since that day, myself and three other comrades have done our best to keep this world afloat, but we lack the power of our natural sovereigns."

"Um, do you mind," Biyomon said, "but who are you exactly?"

"Of course, how foolish of me. I am Metal Seadramon, and I am the inheritor of Xuanwumon's phantasmagoric water powers." He stretched out, forming a perfect circle around the children. "These are dark times we live in, and I must admit, my rule in Xuanwumon's place is entirely administrative. Besides our shared connection with water, I lack all of his powers."

He circled around the children lazily. "And you eight must be the chosen children who were foretold. And yet, you have but four Digimon. I would have assumed that you would each possess one."

"Some of the Digimon got tired of waiting for us," Yolei explained. "And one died."

Metal Seadramon stopped spinning. "Oh?" he said. "Most unfortunate." He resumed, lazily. "I am going to assume, by your presence here, that you are fighting the Evil General named Lady Devimon? This is her territory."

Matt shook his head. "No, we ran into the Digimon Emperor and had to get away. Our Digimon couldn't digivolve!"

"None of them?" Metal Seadramon asked. He looked them over. "Biyomon, Tentomon, Agumon, Gabumon... I can't see why any of them wouldn't be able to digivolve."

Agumon stepped forward. "Gabumon, Tentomon and I could digivolve before."

"I just remembered," Metal Seadramon said with a smile, "The Control Spires. Devious things. Inescapable. And they permanently halt a Digimon's evolution. It must have happened to you." He started muttering to himself, still circling idly. "Yes," he said. "I have a solution. There is a rumored collection of items called Digimentals, each of them representing a powerful virtue."

He stopped rotating around them. "It is said that the Digimentals of Love and Knowledge are located in a temple back in the Emperor's domain. If you could get there, you may be able to retrieve them. I do not know what they might accomplish for you, but if the rumors are true, you will find it worth your time to retrieve them."

Kari smiled. "Thank you," she said.

"Can you be more specific?" TK asked. "There are probably a lot of temples."

"It's quite close to his side of the mountains," Metal Seadramon answered. "It has been some time since I have traveled to his domain; most of my time has been spent attempting to destroy the influence that Lady Devimon and Vamdemon have over my realm. It is hard going though." He sighed. "I am bound to this temple and must return here frequently," he said, "as part of my role as the new god of the north. So long as I fulfill that role, I cannot meet either of them in open combat."

"And these are both some of the generals?" Izzy asked. "If you want, we could stay in these lands and destroy them for you."

Metal Seadramon oscillated in a fashion that suggested ambivalence. "These past five years have taken a great toll on the north. What little damage is left to be done will not be done if your focus is elsewhere for a time. Besides, the Emperor is a greater threat. An evil human was never mentioned in the prophecies; it may yet be that he has the capacity to destroy you. You should take him out first."

Davis nodded. "Great!" he said. "We'll fly back, if that's okay with Airdramon-"

"Of course," the Digimon said.

"And then we'll get the Digimentals and use them to find some way to take that Emperor jerk down. Agreed?"

Everyone nodded, and in moments flew off. Metal Seadramon watched passively, doubting that they would last in the Emperor's territory for long enough to gain either of the Digimentals. However, if he had been aware of what lay under them, he might not have revealed their existence.

* * *

Under four of the many Digimentals, Digimon dreamed. One of friends fallen, one of an unending ocean, one of the destruction and rebirth of a forgotten world. And one of the time his path had crossed with an artifact necessary to save the world. It had been so long, and yet the memory played out over and over again as he slumbered. A reminder of the bargain that had been struck before his sealing, and the price to be paid if he failed.

Hawkmon had been normal, once. Not a good Digimon by any means – a thief and a scoundrel in fact – but he had been normal. His life on File Island was not one of any particular terror, for while Devimon had conquered the island he had also hesitated upon Leomon's fall, and the Black Gears had disappeared for a time.

With the refugees crowding around File Island, it had become a great destination, and for the first time the Royal Base of the Beemon species came to rest around Primary Village. With this, the great riches contained within the base would be accessible for a brief time. And thus, Hawkmon had decided to check it out.

While the variety of Bee- and Waspmon made trades with the villagers, Hawkmon swooped into the hive. It was a vast place, a maze in fact, carved out of gold. Beeswax originally, but gold now. That was how rich the base had become. In every cell of this palace was a treasure, all of them forgotten objects from long-ago times. All of them incredibly valuable.

All Hawkmon had to do was take one. Initially, his plan had been to simply grab the closest one and run, but something caught his eye. It was a golden, octagonal prism with two 'feet' coming out of it. Engraved on its top was a white symbol. Two kite-shaped symbols, their smaller sides pointing at each other, joined two downward-pointing triangles around a stylized 'm'. He stared, and without even slight hesitation, flew across the room and grabbed it.

Naturally, a system of alarms began to ring across the building. Hawkmon had been prepared though, and most of the bee soldiers had been on shore leave or patrolling the perimeter. Getting out of the base was easy. It was getting away that would be tricky.

Fleetly he flew around the base until he saw the path he wanted, leading towards a deep forest. He shot at it straight as an arrow, hearing a buzzing noise grow behind him. Hawkmon swerved calmly, confident in his approach. Still they gained on him. As Hawkmon approached the forest, he prepared himself, and swerved left inches from hitting one of the trees. His pursuers, however, failed to take them into account, and knocked themselves out.

Hawkmon landed by a small pond and gently tossed the golden object in. The lake rippled, and Hawkmon flew off again, ready for another chase, but confident he could get away and return to the glorious item when it was safe to do so.

* * *

The temple, surprisingly, was found easy enough, almost directly side-by-side with a mountain, where Airdramon set down to hide. A set of steps lead up to a small chamber. The children looked around. Two pedestals had been erected, one for each Digimental. The Digimental of Love was probably the gray one with a blue heart (an odd one though; one half was nothing more than a thin line, the other had a small ring-shaped hole in it) and two wings stretching from it. Thus, the Digimental of Knowledge was probably the yellow one with an odd purple design on it, centered around two circles (each with a hole cut out, the larger a ring, the smaller another circle) joined by a thin line.

Izzy confidently approached the yellow one at the behest of the others and attempted to lift it. Nothing happened. He frowned. "It's not really heavy," he said, "I just can't move it."

"Move over!" Davis said, pushing him aside slightly and stepping forward. "Maybe it's for one of us kids without Digimon!" He pulled on the egg as hard as he could, but nothing happened.

"Maybe he's onto something," Tai said. "Yolei, you're pretty smart. Kari, you're a pretty good little sister. Why don't you each try the one that fits?"

Both girls, lacking any better ideas, stepped forward. Kari could not move the grey Digimental any more than Yolei could move the one she was assigned to.

"Hmm," said Izzy, "TK, Matt, Sora Tai, maybe you guys should try."

TK and Tai couldn't move Knowledge, and Matt and Sora couldn't move Love.

"Is this maybe some kind of puzzle?" Tentomon suggested. "Perhaps to move the Digimentals we need great shows of intelligence and love!"

Davis nodded. "Yeah! Hey Kari, wanna help me with this?" he said with a grin.

Sora and Tai both slapped him upside the head. "Don't talk that way to my little sister," Tai growled.

Davis, rubbing his head, apologized. "In all seriousness though," he said, "Tentomon might be onto something."

"Maybe friendship is what the love part means!" Biyomon suggested. "We're not really the best of friends yet, but I like all of you! Especially you, Sora." The teen blushed.

Matt shook his head. "That's kind of hard to demonstrate, even though yeah friendship is probably exactly what love means here. And unless anyone has any trivia questions memorized, I can't see how we'd show off knowledge. And really memorizing those questions would probably be a show enough."

Kari moved up to the Digimental of Knowledge and pulled on it. "We didn't any of us try both," she offered. "Come on, it's worth a shot. We came all this way."

They each complied, but nothing happened until Yolei got a shot at the Digimental of Love. Her digivice began to glow, and turned into a white oval-shaped device with red trim. A second device, a small handheld computer of some kind, appeared attached to her uniform as well. And then the whole temple flashed red.

* * *

When Hawkmon returned, the idol was safe and sound in the lake. He picked it up, shuddering at the wetness, and paid it no more glance. Armed with a small dictionary of symbols, Hawkmon began attempting to decipher the insignia on the object.

"Hmm..." he muttered. "You remind me of 'determination'," he decided. "But you're not quite right..." Hawkmon continued flipping through. "Aha! Miracles!" He stared at the egg. "Miracles, huh?" he asked. "Wonder if you'll get me as much cash as I need, oh miraculous device!"

Hawkmon grabbed it and flew off. He sold it soon enough, to a shifty-looking Starmon, and paid the matter no heed because he had indeed gotten just as much money as he needed. Leaving File Island with nary a care, he flew carefully to the coasts of Server, which had been devastated by some failure in a 'dark network'. Cash handy, Hawkmon began buying all sorts of valuables, and once the inhabitants of Server had given everything away to buy food from foreign merchants, he took his wares south-southwest, to Folder. It was there that things changed.

* * *

A new bird Digimon stood in front of the team. "Hello there!" he said politely. "I assume you are to be my new partner?"

"I... I guess so," Yolei stuttered. "I'm Yolei Inoue."

"And I am Hawkmon!" the bird announced. "Sworn by the four gods to your service. It's a funny story that, you see I had just arrived in a continent called Folder when I stumbled into an ancient, ruined temple. It must have been thousands of years old, and entirely forgotten. But an ancient light still shone in its depths, calling to me, and when I met it, I was recruited to join the team by the preserved memory of a-"

A rumble outside the temple cut the bird off. "Oh dear," he said. "I suppose my story will have to wait."

Tai dashed to the entrance and looked outside. "There are more bug Digimon!" he shouted. "They look like praying mantises though!"

"Oh those are Snimon," Gabumon said. "They're rather friendly... but I guess in the Emperor's territory they might not be." He sighed, wishing briefly that any Digimon could be trusted for an extended period.

"There's dozens of them!" Matt (who had joined Tai) said. "Hawkmon, do you have any idea how to use a Digimental?"

The bird pondered. "You know," he said, "I haven't the foggiest. My friend in the other Digimental said he'd give all the instructions on that. I don't suppose we could free him too?"

Everyone turned to Tai. "You're the only one who didn't try that one yet," said Kari. "Because you were going to try it after Yolei."

Chuckling, the teen darted to it and grabbed it. Nothing. "But... then which one of us?" He looked around. "We all tried it, right?" Everyone nodded. "But then whose is it?"

No one had an answer. TK and Kari tried it again, Davis too, but it didn't move.

"They're too close," Matt said. "We won't be able to get back to the trees without them seeing us, and they definitely have those rings!"

Izzy pulled out his digivice and looked at it. "I'm getting that error message again," he said. "We must be near one of the spires."

"What are we gonna do?" Kari asked. "We can't outrun them all, and even with five Digimon we can't fight them..."

"We don't have to do anything," Izzy said. "We can just sit here and wait for them all to go by. It's not like-" He stopped as the Snimon turned. "Of course," he whispered.

And then, as if by miracle, a portal opened right in front of them, leading onto another grassy plain in early morning. Everyone stared at it for a moment, not entirely believing their luck.

But TK had to ruin it. "We can't just keep running through portals," he said. "The Evil Generals rule everywhere! We're not safer there than we are here."

"Yes we are," Yolei snapped. "Wherever there is, there might not be any Control Spires! Even if I don't know how to use this thing," she said, indicating the handheld that had appeared and the graphic of an oval on its screen, "I can still get Hawkmon to digivolve the normal way."

"But there's more Digimentals here," Kari argued. "TK, Davis and I all need partners."

Matt sighed. "We're in trouble if we stay here though," he said. "Let's hop through this one, figure out how to get back here, and actually be prepared to get the rest of the Digimentals, okay? Who knows, maybe one of you guys'll be able to get the Digimental of Knowledge when we get back."

Kari sighed. "I guess," she said, sounding disappointed.

Together, the kids dashed at the portal, which disappeared behind them the moment they stepped through. Wherever they were now, they were there to stay.

* * *

_Next time: The Digimental of Courage_

_A second property of the portals across the Digiworld is discovered, and the children find themselves seeking a new Digimental in the hopes that Hawkmon and a second Digimon can battle a pursuer._

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Fight scene, next chapter, I promise. Also, possibility of both Davis and Yolei maybe kicking ass? It could happen.

Guest: Interesting theory, but one which I've obviously just disproved. Thanks for reading though. As a note for everyone, things like Bio-Merging and Spirits and such won't appear in this story, so don't worry about these kinds of theories any more. Species of Digimon from other series might (and probably already have) shown up, though. Locations can too unless they're incompatible with Adventure (ie, the Frontier moons). Additionally, Frontier, Savers, and Xros Wars characters will not be showing up. Tamers, yes, because Ryo is sort of part of Ken's backstory despite how confusing that is in both TV shows, and I'm not getting rid of him. But the other universes have no known ties to Adventure, and thus won't be influencing the plot in any way. If you have any questions on things you're not sure I've addressed, feel free to ask.

I also don't intend to do a Tamers/Frontier/Savers/Xros Wars Redux either, because I don't know what I'd change.

Thanks for reading, hope you all like the next chapter!


	8. The Digimental of Courage

Chapter the Seventh: The Digimental of Courage

Three Digimon dreamed, locked away until the children they had been assigned to came to collect them. But where two of the remaining three remembered sequences that stretched across significant stretches, one Digimon could only remember bits and pieces of his life, a series of fragmented moments.

They were as fragmented as his eggshell had become as Chicomon had pushed his way out of the egg, greeting the world for the first time. Benjamin was there, because he had always been there. He smiled and put egg yolk in front of Chicomon, who began to eat happily. Seconds later, Chicomon was sated and looked around. Another small egg sat on the table he'd been on, and it was cracking too.

Leafmon was born and fed, and Benjamin laughed happily for both of them. "We might not have been able to gather the original chosen," he said idly that first day, "but you two will grow up and kill all their enemies some day." His face darkened, and Chicomon hadn't known why. He'd find out later though that there were other, more dangerous enemies to fight than the Evil Generals (how many had emerged then? Six? Seven? Not all thirteen, no...) who threatened the world.

* * *

Kari sighed. "Guys," she said, "is anyone else as tired as I am?"

"Yeah..." TK said, yawning. "We did not get enough sleep last night." He checked his digivice. Its clock now displayed two times; one (ten in the morning) that was File Island time, one (a couple hours earlier) that was time for wherever here was. TK felt so tired it took him awhile to remember that the gang had been up for about seven hours either way.

"Jet lag is even worse when you teleport right to the other side of the world instead of going the long way," Matt joked.

Only Hawkmon, who was flying well ahead of the group, was not particularly weary. The rest of the group trudged across the plain, Biyomon and Tentomon too tired to even bother flying. Hawkmon would turn around every now and then and fly back to the group, but just set off ahead again a little later.

"You know," Yolei said the next time it happened, "maybe you could be our forward scout and keep an eye on things. I don't mind you going on ahead a bit."

Hawkmon shifted uncertainly. "Well," he said finally, "I wouldn't mind either, but I'm not sure if the terms of my contract explicitly allow that. It's a very powerful contract."

"Contract?" Gabumon asked. "I don't remember us having a contract."

"Well of course you lot don't," Hawkmon said imperiously. "You were pre-selected from birth to be perfect fits for your partners. When everything went wrong, not that I'm entirely sure what did so don't ask me, but when it happened I was selected by-" he stopped. "I guess I can't say. But I was selected to ensure that you chosen would have enough in terms of numbers. And I signed a very strict and powerful contract."

Tai and Izzy exchanged a glance. "What were the terms?" Izzy asked.

"That I would be placed under the Digimental of Love to wait for a human child to select me, and that once chosen I would serve him or her devotedly, not leaving him or her until all of the Evil Generals were defeated." Hawkmon turned back to Yolei. "I'm not entirely sure how literal they meant the not leaving bit, so I'd rather not risk it."

"Does something bad happen if you do?" Biyomon asked.

Hawkmon laughed. "This world and all others are destroyed. But in addition, my employer will visit me personally before the end. I'm not sure what it will do to me, but I am quite confident that the experience will be among the worst imaginable." He shuddered. "And keep in mind, while I was waiting for you I relived the events leading up to my sealing over and over again."

"That's awful," Kari said.

Davis nodded. "We should make it a priority to find the Digimentals," he said, "to let the others free."

* * *

Chicomon and Leafmon digivolved one day, and Benjamin smiled all the more at them. "The day is coming soon," he promised them. "Soon I will give you your digivices and the children you need to summon will be found." While they waited, they trained. Chibimon and Minomon raced each other across Benjamin's small house, a cabin hidden carefully in the Forest of the Gods. They were forbidden to go outside, and neither ever wanted to.

There was a secret room they slept in, and Benjamin (who never slept) watched it carefully. No one could know he was sheltering two Digimon until they had already set off with their fated partners, a carefully selected pair of boys whose pictures he showed them often. Chibimon loved the spiky-haired boy he saw and knew they would be together forever once he digivolved once more.

But one day, Benjamin sent them to their room early, muttering something about portals across the sky. Chibimon didn't know what that meant, but he did know what an explosion that rocked the cabin meant. Someone had found them. Chibimon and Minomon, shivering, listened through the wall.

"Who are you?" Benjamin demanded.

The assailant answered, "I do not know. Do you know?" There was silence, then, "What about her? Do you know her?" Benjamin must have shook his head, for the voice continued, "Then you are not an important part of my quest." There was a gentle shifting sound as if Benjamin or one of the other two (the voice, and the woman or girl with it) had put something down. "If you are not important..." The voice sighed.

Another explosion rocked the cabin, and there was silence for a very long time.

* * *

The plains gave way to forest, and the forest thickened into fogs. "I wish we had a guide," Davis said. "This place gives me the creeps."

"No kidding," Yolei said. "Hawkmon, can you see anything through all this soup?" She waved in the general direction she meant, and the bird shook his head.

"I wish we had time for a nap," Agumon said. "Can't we find more hollow trees and hide in them for awhile?"

Hawkmon chuckled. "Hollow trees are entirely indigenous to File Island. They never quite managed to get a good foothold- or roothold I suppose- on Server's eastern coast."

"Great," Sora said. "And I was just thinking we could use them."

A large rock suddenly rose up out of the forest, curving around away from them. A small hole had been cut into it, just barely large enough for the gang to squeeze through one by one. Without even a moment's debate, they proceeded forward, coming to a small cave carved into the rock. Sitting in its center was a fiery egg with a gray horn shoved into it. An orange sun was engraved on it.

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," Izzy muttered. When everyone turned to him in confusion, he explained. "Haven't you noticed that our entire adventure so far has been facilitated by coincidences? These portals helped us reunite without injury and whisked us away from danger right to another Digimental! Aren't they supposed to be random?"

"Don't question it too much," Yolei argued. "Serendipity is pretty helpful! Besides, there's prophecies and all sorts of other things! Maybe someone is looking out for us, and making sure that these portals lead us to where we need to go to actually be useful!"

Izzy sighed. "Fair enough," he said. "But what if it's some sort of long-term trap?"

"Only one way to find out," Davis said, reaching for the Digimental and pulling on it. With a flash of light, his digivice turned into one identical to Yolei's, but with blue trim instead, and another handheld appeared. The digimental vanished, and a pillar of orange light appeared, and in it, another Digimon.

* * *

They buried Benjamin the next day and set out into the great unknown, the two digivices in his pockets retrieved carefully. Sitting under the noonday sun, they began to toss the two machines into the air, over and over again. Finally, both digivices disappeared into the sky.

And then the sky disappeared, replaced by a strange yellow and purple light. It flickered wildly and it seemed as if tens of thousands of demons laughed wildly across the sky. One fell from the sky, but it veered away to the west and disappeared behind the trees. Veemon and Wormmon trembled, but eventually the sky returned. Mostly. Dozens of cracks had appeared along it, and then dozens more. It was the first day they saw the sky, and the first day the sky glitched.

But there was a new light in the sky, a beautiful rainbow carrying two unconscious boys. They landed gently nearby, and the adventure began. Memories of the adventure flashed across Veemon's eyes. They battled through caves and ships, crevasses and evil bases, all the way to the final castle. One last memory remained, and it burned itself again into Veemon's mind right as the Digimental was lifted.

The memory was the price he'd already paid.

* * *

"Uh, hi," Davis said to the blue Digimon.

It looked around at the gang for a few moments, then down. "I... Where am I?" It seemed on the verge of tears.

"I... I don't know," Davis said. "We were hoping you could tell us." He smiled. "My name is Davis, and since I pulled out the Digimental, I think I'm your partner." Davis held out his hand to shake with the blue humanoid, who recoiled briefly, before taking the hand uncertainly.

"My name is Veemon," he said. "Uh..." he looked at the gang again. "None of you look very familiar. Are you new?"

Izzy leaned forward. "New?" he asked. "Do you mean... are there other humans like us?"

Veemon didn't answer. "Never mind that," he said. "It's nice to meet you, Davis," he said with a slight lisp. "I guess..." He looked away again. He hadn't had to relive the memory, but it was fresh in his mind too, like it was only yesterday.

* * *

He walked across the sands, alone, weeping. The monster had paid him no attention, and the boy (what was his name? Veemon didn't remember, they had only just reunited after weeks of separation) and Wormmon had left so suddenly he'd not even noticed. They'd abandoned them. No, just him. There was no 'them' to abandon.

The agent who had helped them earlier appeared in front of him. "Hello again," Gennai said. "I see things went about as well as last time."

Veemon charged angrily at the agent. "You knew!" he shouted, pounding his fists at him. The agent was merely projecting a hologram, but Veemon didn't care. He fell forward, weeping again. "You knew Ryo would die!" he screamed. "You did this all on purpose!"

Gennai sighed. "I had no idea," he said. "None whatsoever. I had been informed that Millenniummon would not under any circumstances kill him. It seems that my source was incorrect." He looked away. "Nonetheless, our situation is not in fact irreparable. You can still save the world."

"I don't want-"

"It doesn't matter any more," the agent said. "This has to be done." He sighed. "Will you agree?"

Veemon, weeping, nodded.

* * *

"I guess we're a team now," Veemon finished. He still didn't seem very happy, and Davis could tell. The young boy seemed rather deflated.

"Do you know how to use Digimentals?" Yolei asked.

The blue Digimon turned to her. "Of course! You just shout 'Digimental up'!"

This information proved very useful when a rough voice shouted from outside, "We have you surrounded! Come out slowly and one at a time!"

Yolei and Davis exchanged a glance. "Think we can take them?" Yolei asked. Davis nodded, and the two of them, followed by their new Digimon, led the way outside.

Once they were all outside, they were confronted by a large number of floating gear Digimon, each of which had a dark ring around itself. "Hagurumon," Hawkmon explained. "They won't be much of a threat once we both digivolve."

Tai checked his digivice, confirming that the error screen was still there. "Dammit," he said. "Davis, Yolei, this one is going to have to be on you guys."

"Digimental up!" they both shouted. Each of their Digimon were absorbed by light; Hawkmon red, Veemon orange.

"Flapping with wings of love, Holsmon!"

"Burning with courage, Fladramon!"

Both children stared at their partners. Hawkmon had become a large, quadrupedal bird with an immense amount of gray armor over its head and wings. Veemon had remained bipedal, but had become the size of an adult and had armor over his head, hands, and feet.

The Hagurumon trembled before the sudden appearance of two adult Digimon. "You shouldn't be able to do that!" one of them shouted. "The Control Spir-" It was cut off when Fladramon stabbed through the ring around it, destroying it.

Fladramon and Holsmon worked quickly, eliminating each ring around the Hagurumon in turn. The child Digimon joined in with their own attacks, and the Hagurumon who were freed soon joined in. Veemon and Hawkmon gladly returned to their original forms, lying on the ground and resting for a few moments.

"The Emperor's an incompetent if he thinks this is the sort of stuff that'll stop us," Matt remarked. "Honestly we could probably have torn off the rings without getting the digimon involved!"

"And who are you to be making claims like that?"

Everyone looked up. The Emperor was sitting on an Airdramon, looking down on them. Something seemed wrong though, he looked different somehow.

"No enemy enters my presence and survives," the Emperor said coolly.

"Oh yeah?" Tai shouted back. "We've done it once before!"

The Emperor chuckled. "When was that?" he asked. "I've never seen-" He cut himself off, laughing suddenly. "Oh of course. You lot must not know!" He laughed even harder. "Your Digimon didn't tell you?"

Sora shook her head. "What?" she said. "What didn't they tell us?"

"Millenniumon's influence over this world is so powerful that the portals tearing across it are not merely holes in space, but in time." The Emperor laughed all the more. "You've met me before in your past, my future. And now you're here, probably stranded, with no guarantee of another portal taking you back to your present."

Izzy seemed to be fighting the urge to laugh. "That's impossible!" he said. "That's... that's the most ridiculous thing..." He stared closely at the Emperor, who did seem younger than before. "How the hell..." he started. He looked as well at the Airdramon, wondering if there was a way to see if it was in fact the same one.

"Airdramon," the Emperor said, "kill them."

"Digimental up!" Davis and Yolei shouted again, bringing Fladramon and Holsmon back to the fray. They rose up at the Airdramon, grabbing it fiercely.

The Emperor stared in shock. "Digivolution is impossible in my domain!" he shouted angrily. "What have you done?!"

No one answered, because again another portal opened, this one looking out onto the beach that Tai and the others had seen before, though now it was a scene set at night. The phone booths remained, serene. All eight children considered it for a long moment.

"Should we?" Sora asked.

Matt nodded, grabbing TK's wrist. "The Control Spires don't affect things over there."

TK pulled himself free. "But we don't know when that beach is!" he said. "What if it's even further in the past? And how are Kari and I going to get Digimon if we don't find more Digimentals?"

"That doesn't matter right now! Let's at least get somewhere where all of us can fight!" Tai said, dashing towards the portal. "Come on!"

"What if my theory is correct and it's a trap?" Izzy asked. "That Millenniumon character the Emperor described doesn't sound like a very safe individual to be relying on."

No one answered. Finally, Yolei said, "We need to risk it. Devimon wasn't half as much of a threat. We'll go there, take him out as soon as possible, and then we'll be ready to fight the Emperor!" She turned to TK. "Please?" she said.

He sighed. "Fine," he said. "Let's go."

"Holsmon! Fladramon! Get down here!"

Both Digimon de-digivolved and fell into Yolei and Davis's arms as they jumped through yet another portal. Again, it closed as soon as all eight were through, and they collapsed onto the beach.

"I wonder when we are," Matt muttered, looking at his Digivice. There was now only one time displayed on it, but it was hard to be certain what that meant.

Kari was, strangely, the only one who hadn't fallen over. "Guys," she said. "We've been doing a lot of running away." She sighed. "I know I can't talk much because I don't have a Digimon, but I think that, no matter when we've ended up, we need to spend time here and train."

Biyomon nodded. "I would like to digivolve," she agreed. "We should stop portal-jumping unless we absolutely have to. Devimon and the Emperor aren't overly dangerous. Other Evil Generals definitely are."

"Yes," Veemon said. "At the rate we're going, we won't be able to stop any of them."

With that dark thought, the children began to set up camp, and decided to catch up on the sleep they had missed earlier.

* * *

_Next time: Book of Kindness Round 2: Matt and Izzy_

_Another night, another uncertain chat. Two boys exchange theories about the strange world they find themselves in._

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Just a review response this time. Thanks everyone for reading and lemme know what's good/bad/ugly!

Lord Jaric: Thanks for reading.  
It gets even worse when you factor in the fact that Ken is explicitly not one of them (if the "Next Time" blurbs can be trusted, anyway). But don't fear, every one of the Evil Generals is a bad guy from some point along the way in Adventure or 02, including their movies. Anything in the period between 01 and 02 who might have been dealt with is also fair game. This Lady Devimon is the one who served Piedmon in 01, and is probably the only Evil General I wouldn't expect anyone to guess at once or twice. Additionally, none of the Dark Masters are among the ranks of the generals because why stop at thirteen villains when you can have at least eighteen?


	9. Book of Kindness 02: Matt and Izzy

Round Two: Matt and Izzy

Matt woke with a start, panting.

"You okay?" Izzy asked. Matt started again, not having noticed that the other boy, and his Digimon, were awake. "Sorry," Izzy added, chuckling.

"I'm fine," Matt said. "Just a bad nightmare. Surprised I haven't had more already."

Izzy shrugged. "Sometimes it takes the mind a little while to process the situations it's in," he said. "You've probably just now come to terms with the fact that we're going to be here awhile."

"That's putting it lightly," Matt said darkly. "Thirteen Evil Generals, plus that Emperor guy... And still no clue on how we're supposed to deal with them."

"Yeah..." Izzy sighed. "We don't even know who they all are. If I remember everything right, there's Devimon, Daemon, Lady Devimon, Vamdemon, maybe Millenniumon? That's only five."

Tentomon chipped in with a jocular, "Eight to go." Matt shook his head in response.

"Where the hell is that guy who summoned us to the Digital World, and why isn't he doing anything for us? We shouldn't be debating who is on our hit list, we should have the whole thing. And maybe an army."

Izzy didn't have a response for awhile, and for a moment Matt considered rolling back over and trying to go to sleep again when Izzy asked, "What was it about? Your nightmare?"

Matt sighed, sitting back up. "Why?" he asked.

"I'm just curious," Izzy answered. "It's just something to talk about. I can't sleep anyway."

"Whatever. It was just us fighting some weird shadowy Digimon and losing really badly. TK and you and everyone else dying, except me. I just stood there watching and never got attacked." Matt shrugged. "It's not a big deal or anything," he explained. "It was just scary when it was happening, and now that it's over I'm not really freaked out anymore."

Tentomon looked over to TK. "I don't quite understand something," he said. "Why are you two so similar when everyone else looks somewhat different? Except Tai and Kari if you squint," he added.

Matt laughed. "We're brothers," he said. Tentomon didn't seem to get it. "Do you guys have moms or dads?" Matt asked. "Or are you only ever born at Primary Villages?"

"The latter," Tentomon said.

"Ah. Well, with humans, we don't get reborn when we die. So instead, inside our bodies is a microscopic code that is basically the blueprints to make each one of us."

Izzy coughed. "To be clear, just our bodies. Our personalities and memories are formed as we grow, so if you made a new me he could be quite different."

"Yeah. And a mom and a dad can get together and... mix... their codes, and if it works, a new human with a code based off of each of them is born several months later." Matt laughed. "So since TK and I have the same mom and dad, our codes are pretty similar to each other's."

Tentomon nodded. "And because of this, you two care about each other a lot, right?"

"Exactly," Matt said. "When we were separated, I was frantic." He turned to Izzy. "Thanks, by the way, for keeping an eye on him."

Izzy waved off the compliment. "He wasn't even ever in danger, so it was nothing."

Matt looked over towards TK, sighing. "Still," he said. "I really should try to look after him. I haven't been doing that much lately, even back on Earth."

"Does he get into trouble a lot?" Izzy asked.

"Not big trouble, just... he and Davis usually get up to dumb stuff sometimes. I swear, sometimes I wanna kill that kid. He means well mostly but he's kinda dumb."

Izzy laughed. "And yet your mom is okay with them hanging out? My family always tried to stop me from being friends with anyone they thought was a bad influence."

The blonde boy turned back to Izzy. "You know our family situation?" Izzy shook his head. "Well, when TK was a lot younger, our parents fought all the time, so they got a divorce. I was so angry at Mom for the things she said to Dad (even though he kinda deserved some of it) that I insisted I wasn't gonna live with her. TK was too little to wanna go too though, so in the end we were separated and he and Mom left Odaiba. I didn't see him again for awhile, usually once or twice during summer break at most.

"Finally though, Mom moved back. And well, TK wasn't really a happy kid. He was only in fifth grade, so it's not like he was up to anything serious, but... Honestly I kinda thought he'd probably stop caring about school at all and just start doing drugs or some other stupid thing by high school." Matt laughed. "But then TK met Davis, and Davis is an idiot, but he's not enough of one to get involved in that kind of shit. Sora, who was TK's penpal for awhile after they met in summer camp, talked to my mom about it and made it obvious Davis was a good kid, mostly."

Izzy stared at both of the seventh year boys, sleeping calmly in adjacent sleeping bags, Veemon on the ground between them. "So that's his story, huh?"

Matt nodded. "Mine's not much better. I was part of a band briefly a couple years ago, but we sucked and were always fighting so I got tired and left." He smiled. "They were good times while they lasted, but I'm not really good with teams so sometimes I wonder if I caused half of the problems that we had to deal with."

"Probably not," Izzy said. "No one is the cause of all of the problems in a social circle."

"I'm not so sure," Matt responded. "What about you?"

Izzy blushed. "I... I don't do a whole lot. I'm part of a bunch of internet communities, mostly. We make dumb little animations in Flash. My family and I get on just fine, barring the occasional fight that you'd expect. I don't really have a weirdly tragic history. Just a plain one."

Tentomon rubbed his wings together in a way that seemed reminiscent of a dog wagging its tail. "I'm glad you had a normal life, Izzy," he said. Izzy blushed even harder.

"Yeah well, with me and TK it's just divorce, it's not that unusual." Matt looked up at the broken sky. "Still though, I kinda wish we'd been able to be normal brothers for longer. I do still worry about the guy, you know?"

"I'm sure he'll grow up fine," said Izzy. "Everyone has an awkward phase or two in their lives, right?"

Matt nodded. "It's just, with TK... Sometimes it seems kinda permanent. Like even twenty years from now he's still gonna be kinda dark and quiet. Him and Kari, really, though she at least has a pretty good excuse from what I understand."

"People can change," Izzy said firmly. "And honestly, after all of the stuff we're going to be doing here, I bet when we come out of it we'll all feel a little better about our lives. They won't seem half as bad as fighting a war."

Matt chuckled. "And I'll have something to genuinely play the blues about," he added. "So really, either way I win!"

"You play the blues?"

"Yeah, on my harmonica," Matt said. "I'm good at that and guitar mostly. If I had either of them on me, and it was daytime, I'd offer to show you."

Izzy grinned. "That would be pretty cool. And if I had my laptop, I could show off all of my little animations. Maybe when we get home, we can work together on something? Me art, you soundtrack, the rest of it collaborative?"

"Yeah," said Matt. "Yeah that sounds fun."

* * *

_Next time: Uncertain Waters_

_The children head northward, searching for civilization. What they find instead further reinforces how damaged the world they now live in has become._

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

It's been a busy day, so while I appreciate all reviews I'm gonna put any responses that should be public down in the next chapter's section. Thank you all for reading and reviewing (if you do review), I genuinely appreciate any helpful or kind words you have.


End file.
